


The Triple Lutz Job

by FullmetalChords



Series: let's go steal an ice rink [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, Alternate Universe - Thieves, Gen, Sometimes Bad Guys Make the Best Good Guys, Thief!Yuri, grifter!Yuuri, hacker!Phichit, hitter!Otabek, incidental politics, mastermind!Victor, no prior knowledge of leverage is necessary to read this, there's still some skating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-10-23 23:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10729104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalChords/pseuds/FullmetalChords
Summary: Backed by the world's foremost hackers, grifters, and thieves, Victor Nikiforov works the other side of the law to fight against injustice on behalf of the underprivileged.When a woman asks for his help in retrieving stolen government data, Victor and his team infiltrate a local figure skating competition in order to take down a corrupt CEO. But beneath the ice's frigid beauty lurk many perilous secrets that may be more than even the world's greatest thieves can handle.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While this fic is somewhat inspired by the TV show Leverage, familiarity with the show is completely unnecessary for following this fic. Basically, when corporations and the government screw you, sometimes bad guys make the best good guys. 
> 
> Rating is mostly for language, and possibly some PG-rated violence later on.

It started, as always, with a meeting at Yu-topia Katsuki.

“You’re saying the company stole the program you were writing?” Victor asked, taking a slow sip from his glass of sake. The client, a Black woman with long twists down her back, shook her head.

“The program’s not important, Mr. Nikiforov,” she said, picking up her own cup of tea. “It can’t be used for any real harm. But the data it yielded… Years’ worth of climate change data, just… _gone_ from our records at the EPA.”

“Might be behind some heavy-duty firewalls,” Phichit said, looking up, for once, from his smartphone. “Should be easy enough to get around.”

“No, it’s…” The client shook her head again. “It’s not hidden, it’s been completely wiped from the servers. They must have moved it somewhere else. If they haven’t destroyed it,” she added bitterly.

“Why would anyone want to destroy data on climate change?” Victor asked.

The client gave him a long, sympathetic look. “Mr. Nikiforov,” she said, adjusting her spectacles. “Without that information on the ozone layer, on polar ice cap melts, on global temperature change over the past several years… no government on earth would be able to write proper environmental regulations for big corporations without that information. Which,” she added bitterly, “is exactly what ThermaTek wants.”

“Dirty corporates,” spat their fourth companion halfway down the table. “They’d strip mine their own mothers if it made them a few extra bucks.”

“Yurio,” Victor said, putting on what Phichit privately called his “client face”. The team’s youngest member’s mouth snapped shut, although the dirty look didn’t fade from his face. “Dr. Olatunji,” he continued, extending his hand to the client, “we’ll take care of this for you. You have my word.”

The client simply looked at his outstretched hand, hesitating for a moment.

“I… I can’t really afford to hire you,” she said, flushing at the admission. But Victor’s friendly smile didn’t waver.

“Not to worry,” he said smoothly. “This project operates on an… alternative revenue stream.”

 

\--

 

“All right, Robert Jackson, CEO of ThermaTek.” Several graphics popped up on Phichit’s wall of monitors, including the target’s location on the map, readouts of the mark’s bank accounts, and, for some reason, several pictures of the mark on vacation in the Caymans that looked as though they had been put through an Instagram filter.

“Did you Insta-stalk him?” Yuuri asked their hacker, raising an eyebrow at said photos.

“He makes it so _easy_ ,” Phichit sighed, clicking another button on his remote to demonstrate several Photoshopped versions of Jackson’s photos, each more revolting than the last. “Honestly, give me sixty seconds and I could probably put some incriminating images on his Facebook feed, finish the job right now.”

“We’re trying to steal the data back so we can make it public,” Victor said, leaning back in his chair at the conference table. “If we _happen_ to ruin Jackson’s life in the process, well.” He heaved a dramatic sigh. “I’d call it a bonus, though it isn’t necessarily the goal.”

The Japanese branch of Leverage International had made its latest headquarters in the back rooms of a local ryokan, with enough room for them each to have their own small office. Their briefing room, Phichit’s pride and joy, was the only modern room in the facility, packed with wall-to-wall screens and furnished with a mahogany conference table. The offices more often than not doubled as a place for the five of them to sleep, stretched out on futons and tatami mats.

At least the hot springs out back were a nice perk.

“Where’d he move the data to, anyway?” Yuuri asked. “You said you couldn’t hack it?”

“Thought you could hack anything,” Yuri Plisetsky scoffed, his feet propped up on the conference table. “What’s the use of you if you—“

“Yura,” Otabek said from the opposite end, a low warning. Yuri’s eyes locked with the hitter’s for a moment, and then he fell silent.

“For the record,” Phichit said, holding up a finger, “I _can_ hack anything. But I can’t hack what I can’t _find_. You feel?” He hit a few buttons on a nearby keyboard, pulling up an audio file. “You know what I _can_ hack, however? The bug that the FBI left in this guy’s SIM card.”

“FBI has him bugged?”

“Yeah,” Phichit nodded at Victor. “My guess, he covers up the government data, government makes sure ThermaTek can do whatever it wants with its business. The bug’s probably insurance to make sure Jackson holds up his side of the deal.”

“The fuck is up with the US government lately?” Yuri muttered, with Otabek nodding in solidarity.

“Feels like home, doesn’t it, Yurio?” Victor said drily, and Yuri, while looking disgusted, didn’t disagree.

“So I used that to track his phone,” Phichit said, typing rapidly into his wireless keyboard. “Most of the places he went weren’t out of the ordinary – home, work, kid’s school – but one place was.” He selected a point on the digital map, pulling up a photograph of what looked like a large stadium.

“An… ice arena?” Yuuri asked, studying the photo closely.

“Bingo,” Phichit said. “Used to be the Verizon Arena, up until about a month ago, when it was bought by…”

“ThermaTek.”

Phichit stopped mid-word, looking miserably at Otabek. “Now, really! Do you know how much time and effort I put into these presentations for you all? If you can’t respect my process, then _please_ —“

“We love you, Phichit,” Yuuri said flatly, though there was a twinkle in his eye. “You’re a genius, Phichit.”

“ _Thank_ you.” Phichit preened for a moment. “Technically, it’s owned by ‘BlazeMedia’, a shell company that’s owned by a shell company that’s owned by ThermaTek? But yeah, you got it. My guess is, company thinks they can hide whatever in there and no one will come looking for it. And sad thing is, they’re probably right.”

“What kind of security do they have?” Yuri asked, now leaning forward in his chair intently. “Lasers? Heat sensors? Motion sensors?”

“Mm, yes, yes, and yes, from what I can tell,” Phichit said, typing again to bring up the schematics. “All of that guarding a top-of-the-line Glenn-Reeder 7490.”

Yuri smirked, leaning back in his chair again as he studied the plans. “Excellent. Cracking one of them’s on my bucket list.”

“What’s our in?” Otabek asked, getting the group back on track. Phichit beamed.

“Glad you asked.”

He clicked another button on his remote, and a handful of new photos appeared. A young, haughty-looking teenager, probably around fourteen, posing with a gold medal around his neck and wearing what looked like glittery, hypercolor spandex.

“Jackson’s son, Lachlan,” Phichit announced. “Local junior figure skating champion. Has a big regional competition coming up at the BlazeMedia Arena this weekend.”

“Convenient timing,” Yuri snorted, his chair leaning all the way back.

“Yes, Baby Yuri,” Phichit agreed with more than a dash of self-satisfaction. “A very _convenient_ competition that was, in no way, rescheduled due to a certain celebrity judge’s calendar suddenly being fully booked other than this coming weekend. Conveniently.”

“Nice work,” Victor nodded, while Yuri snapped, “Don’t _call_ me that!” “Yuuri. How’s your skating these days?”

Yuuri sighed. “Guess we’ll find out,” he said, offering Victor a smile.

Victor grinned around at his team.

“Let’s go steal an ice rink.”

 

\--

 

A year ago, they’d all worked alone.

Yuri Plisetsky had become a world-renowned jewel thief by the age of fifteen, claiming responsibility for thefts of precious stones on at least four continents. Phichit Chulanont had gained notoriety early on as well, for hacking into the Bank of Iceland from his childhood bedroom in Bangkok; he’d posted an untraceable selfie to his Instagram to mark the occasion. Otabek Altin, meanwhile, had been a shadow of the criminal underworld, gaining a reputation as a top retrieval specialist while also inspiring fear from even the most hardened assassins.

Victor Nikiforov had been an insurance investigator.

A very good insurance investigator, to be sure. His company had insured works of art for museums and private collectors, and it had been his job to investigate fraud and theft in all its various forms. Through his work he’d come across the three of them quite a few times, becoming familiar with their MO’s and even managing to prevent a few of their heists.

His old job was also how he’d become familiar with the man they called Katsuki Yuuri.

It wasn’t his real name. Victor had met the former art thief perhaps a dozen times over the years, each time using a different alias. His current one, he knew, was inspired by the inn that was now their headquarters, though the family that ran the inn bore little resemblance to their Yuuri. Yuuri was a master of his craft, a con man of the first degree, and with his new team there were still some things he kept extremely closely guarded. Even from Victor.

Victor had pursued Yuuri through the streets of Barcelona, through street markets in Beijing… even, once, on skates through the ice rink in the Red Square. It had been a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse, although as time had gone on, Victor had become less sure of who was the cat and who was the mouse.

But eighteen months ago, everything had changed.

Victor’s mother was sick; had been sick for years. When the diagnosis came that she had stage four liver cancer, Victor had filed a claim with his employer right away, asking them to cover the cost of her treatment.

His employer had refused.

 _Too risky,_ they’d said, shaking their heads. _She’s too old._ Terms like “preexisting condition” and “liability” had drifted through Victor’s ears, terms he knew so well suddenly carrying a new sting. He’d known that ISU hated shelling out for anything that wouldn’t give them a return; he’d known that.

But it hadn’t helped, as he’d watched his mother die on the operating table.

Grief had enfolded him in a shroud for a few months after that. He’d stopped coming to work, taking up entirely too much time in bars. It barely registered when ISU fired him, leaving him a tidy severance package that he quickly started to drink away.

And then, one year ago, a young woman had approached him as he sat at a bar in St. Petersburg.

Victor had never learned her name, nor the names of the two men that flanked her; one was enthusiastic in helping her deliver the pitch to join their organization, while the other sat at her left, unsmiling, eyes constantly scanning the room. But as she’d passed him the dossiers with profiles on Yuri, Phichit, and Otabek, Victor had felt something remarkably similar to hope.

Corporations like ISU had all the money, all the power. And all they ever used it for was to make people like him and his mother go away. He certainly wasn’t the only person this had ever happened to.

The underprivileged of the world suffered under an enormous weight.

Victor could help provide leverage.

 

\--

 

The regional skating competition was a week away, and most competitors were still practicing at their local rinks.

Of course, Lachlan Jackson, being the son of ThermaTek’s CEO, was able to practice on the competition ice as much as he wanted. An unfair advantage, to be sure, but what did that matter when his family’s net worth was the same as a small country’s GDP? 

It was almost child’s play to get one of their men on the inside.

“Disgraceful!” Yuuri’s voice came floating across the ice, interrupting Lachlan as he practiced his free skate. “Your free leg is sloppy, and what was with that triple loop? It’s making the angels cry, son! The _angels!”_

A brief, perplexed pause, then Lachlan said, “You mean my triple _lutz_?”

“Oh, good,” Yuuri snapped, after only the slightest hesitation. “So you _were_ paying attention.”

Victor watched him from up in the manager’s booth. It had been easy to get the real manager out of the way, thanks to a rogue Zamboni accident that had him laid up in the hospital with two broken legs. It had been even easier to bluff his way into a job as the acting manager, thanks to his well-placed charms and Phichit’s flawless, and completely manufactured, credentials.

(He’d also managed to convince the owner that he was sixty-two years old and a former Soviet gymnast. His natural hair color and accent were good for something, he supposed.)

Victor turned his attention back to the ice. When not on the grift, he reflected, Yuuri was incredibly reserved, and anxious more often than not. When he’d first brought Yuuri onto their team, knowing they needed a grifter, Yuri, Phichit and Otabek had all doubted this shy, stuttering man’s ability to successfully pull the wool over a client’s eyes.

Victor grinned, watching his lover at work now. Watching Yuuri transform so completely on every single job, whether he was playing an overenthusiastic foreign tourist, a demure college student, or a sultry exotic dancer, was nothing short of magical. It was hard to keep his eyes off him.

Over their linked earbuds, Victor could hear Lachlan’s indignance clearly. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Evan Carroll,” Yuuri sneered, looking over at Lachlan with similar disdain. “Three-time junior national champion. Your skating’s cute and all, but. Wait until you move up to the senior division and do some _real_ skating.”

The teenager blinked at the unfamiliar name. “I’ve never heard of you,” he said, just this side of suspicious.

“Oh, really?” Yuuri’s voice had taken on a dangerous snarl, and Victor had to stifle a laugh as he realized who this new alias was partially based off of. “Have you heard of _Google_ , you little asshole?” Lachlan yelped, and Victor bit his lip to keep from grinning. Yuuri’s fake identity was already validated, at least supposedly, by online articles Phichit had written up and old photographs he’d altered. Yuuri’s real trick was pulling off the character with such confidence that the mark never thought to verify his story. “Now, feel free to keep ‘practicing’, if you want, but otherwise? _Stay the fuck out of my way.”_

Lachlan all but sprinted off the ice, and Yuuri tilted his chin up, facing in the direction of the booth where Victor was hidden.

“I know you love watching me,” he said quietly, and it felt as though he were murmuring in Victor’s ear, even from across that great distance. “But make sure the others are doing their job, too.”

“I can’t help it,” Victor sighed, leaning his chin on his hand. “You’re so mesmerizing out there on the ice.”

He heard Yuuri snort, saw him do a halfhearted little twirl. “Is it the character,” he asked in the same low tones, “or the outfit?”

“Mm,” Victor said, considering Yuuri’s form-fitting track pants and his tight blue T-shirt. “Little column A, little column B.”

“Focus, Victor,” Yuuri said, gliding toward the rink opening, swaying his hips a bit more than necessary. “And if you’re good…” 

“Goddamn it!” Yuri Plisetsky roared over comms, and Victor froze, having completely forgotten that the other three were listening in, too. “If you two don’t stop fucking flirting over comms, my brain’s gonna bleed out my ears, and you assholes are gonna be out a thief!”

“Victor,” Phichit’s dry voice added, “am I going to have to show you how to open a private line again?”

“Uh…” Victor cleared his throat, awkwardly. “P-Phichit. Have we located the vault yet?”

 

\--

 

“He’d have it located a hell of a lot faster if you’d stop making us vomit,” Yuri griped from his vantage point on the roof of ThermaTek’s offices, halfway across town. He buckled the last point of rigging, tugging it so it sat securely on his chest.

“Lot of electricity being diverted to the sub-basement,” Phichit’s voice rang out over comms. He was tucked safely in the team’s van, Arthur II, although his scanners and surveillance were working overtime, getting the team the intel they needed.

“Otabek, I need eyes down there.”

“Yup,” the hitter grunted, taciturn as always even when on the job.

Yuri adjusted his black skullcap, keeping his trademark blond hair hidden. “Why’d you let Fake Yuuri do the grifting for this recon gig, anyway?” He’d long accepted that one of them had to have a nickname (it was impossible to distinguish between “Yuri” and “Yuuri” over comms) but why did it have to be _him_? Yuri had been there first! And “Yuuri” wasn’t even the grifter’s real name!

“Because he’s the best,” Victor said patiently. Yuuri was too busy loudly condescending at Lachlan to answer for himself.

“But he’s doing _me_!” Yuri protested. Phichit laughed in his ear. “Who’s gonna do me better than me?”

“Yurio,” Victor said, sounding like he was trying not to laugh, “I love you, but you look like you’re twelve. You being a national _anything_ just isn’t credible.” That made Yuri see red. He was _nineteen_ , goddamn it.

“Not to mention, last time you ended up stabbing the mark.” Phichit’s voice was positively gleeful.

“You should fucking talk, _Iceman_ ,” Yuri spat, remembering Phichit’s own disastrous attempt at grifting. “Remind me, which one of us managed to antagonize the _entire_ Columbian mob in under an hour?”

“It would have worked! They were eating out of my hand!”

“Wearing bling and driving a hot pink convertible doesn’t make you a credible jewel thief, you—“

“Yurio,” and _god_ , he was going to kill Victor, with that annoying singsong voice. “Remember, you’ve got a job to do. The ThermaTek offices aren’t going to break into themselves.”

Yuri groaned loudly.

“ _Fine_ ,” he grumbled. “You never let me do anything fun.”

He poised himself at the edge of the building before taking a swan dive off it, bungee cord trailing behind him.

 

\--

 

The vault, Otabek informed them, was in the sub-basement, hidden past a short hallway locked with a keypad. And if Phichit’s intel was correct (which it always was), there was still a laser grid and several sensors to get past before Yuri could actually get near the vault.

“Good news, at least,” Phichit offered as the five of them sat near the back of the arena, pretending to watch a local hockey team practice. “There’s a vent that should take you up to the door, so you won’t have to worry about being spotted in the hallways.”

“Great,” Yuri grunted, his feet propped up on the seat in front of him. “God forbid any of the rest of you should learn to crawl through an air duct on your stomachs. It’s not _that_ hard.”

“We wouldn’t fit,” Yuuri said, reasonably.

“Maybe _you_ wouldn’t, piggy—“

“Yurio,” Victor interrupted, a finger pressed to his lips as he thought. “How many minutes in and out?

Yuri sighed, looking up at the ceiling as he thought. “Well, based on the prints Beka got off the keypad, there are 24 possible combinations, so… three minutes to get through those, tops. Maybe six minutes total?” 

“Can you make it five?”

“Always asking the impossible, aren’t you, Victor…”

Victor didn’t say anything for a while.

“I have a bad feeling,“ he finally said. “That’s all. It’s too… simple.”

At the end of the row, Otabek grunted in agreement. The four of them looked at him, studying the way he was glowering at the rink.

“Got something to say, Dark Prince?” Phichit said, raising an eyebrow.

Otabek’s attention didn’t waver from the ice, studying the hockey players gliding back and forth. “Company like ThermaTek’s got to have some hired muscle, especially with a score that big,” he finally said, crossing his arms. “I was wondering why we didn’t see any guards down in the sub-basement, but… well, looks like most of them went undercover as hockey players.”

The four of them took another look at the hockey team, which was breaking in half for a scrimmage. “Uh, not that I’d want to take any of them in a fight,” Yuuri said, “but what makes you think they’re mercs?”

“Not just ordinary mercs,” Otabek said. “Ex-military. Black ops, at least half of them. You can tell from the way they grip their hockey sticks.”

“You can ID someone’s background from the way they grip a stick?” Phichit looked incredulous.

“It’s a very distinctive grip.” Otabek’s expression didn’t waver. The look on his face seemed to dare any of the supposed hockey players to come after his team.

“So, yeah, Yurio,” Victor said, turning back to their thief. “The quicker you can get in and out of the vault, the better.”

Yuri couldn’t hide his look of trepidation in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday morning I read approximately three sentences of a thief AU, and the next thing I knew, I had 15 pages of a Leverage fic written up. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ The idea of the stolen climate change data is, of course, related to 45's fuckery.
> 
> I have some idea of where I want this to go, but I haven't written it up quite yet. Hopefully will have it up by later this week!
> 
> Next time: The heist! Otabek punching some hockey players! Yurio backflipping through a laser grid! Complications! Romance?!
> 
> find me [@phoenixrei](http://phoenixrei.tumblr.com) on Tumblr


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team continues to set the trap for Robert Jackson. Yuuri frets. Yuri gets impatient. Victor takes a page out of Gru's book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I'm back, finally! This chapter was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever written because I'm not used to writing such intricate plots. But such is my devotion to the Leverage AU, goddamn it! I now have a much, MUCH better handle on this fic, and while I can't guarantee an update schedule, I am committed to finishing at this point.
> 
> I want to point out that as of two days ago (5/24) I made a few significant changes to chapter 1 of this fic to better fit with how the ideas later evolved. Most important of which is that Yuuri's character is now a skater, not a coach. Also, this fic will now probably be 4-5 chapters instead of 2. Uhhhh. Oops? 
> 
> it's also part of a series now. I REGRET NOTHING. There's already a side story up detailing how Victor and Yuuri met, and I'm planning at least another handful that give glimpses of their other jobs. Nothing this detailed, though.
> 
> Also, quick warning for some misogyny, racism, and homophobia coming from the mark, which isn't openly challenged by the characters because, you know, cons. He gets what's coming to him, though. Ohh, he will.

Robert Jackson was running late.

An early morning exotic massage had been a good start to the day, getting him ready for another grueling day of running this multinational outerwear and temperature control conglomerate; but it had absolutely ruined his commute time. He strode out of the elevator ten minutes behind schedule, his employees parting before him like the Red Sea.

“Ah, Mr. Jackson…” It was the new secretary, C-something… at least according to her cup size, which was as good a mnemonic as any. “Your nine o’clock is here. I asked him to wait out here, but…”

“My _what_?” He didn’t remember having an appointment this early in the day – too often it would cut into tee time – so he ignored Carol or Cheryl or whatever her name was, opening the door to his office to find a man already behind his desk, sitting confidently in _his_ ergonomic chair as though it were his office.

“Ah, hello!” Although the man seemed young, he had silver hair that was already clearly thinning, pinned back from his forehead in a severe part and slicked into place with an absurd amount of gel. But what stood out much more to Jackson was the thick Russian accent the man spoke in. The realization of who this man _must_ work for, then, made Jackson go stiff.

The man was ignorant of Jackson’s growing distress, positively beaming as he got up from Jackson’s chair, seizing one of his hands with both of his own and pumping it furiously.“Mr. Robert Jackson, yes? We have much to discuss.”

“Charmed,” he managed, not daring to look away from the man. “I’m… I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Andrei Slavonich,” the man said, still gripping Jackson’s hand. “Cutting Edge Consulting.” He grinned, showing all his teeth, and Jackson fought back a shudder. Jackson was certainly no stranger to dealing with Russians – KGB, Bratva, what have you – but he’d never met one so aggressively _cheerful_. He was almost afraid to find what Slavonich was hiding beneath that exterior.

“To what do I owe this visit?” he managed, hoping he projected an image of confidence rather than nervousness. Slavonich continued to smile, finally letting Jackson’s hand slide out of his sweaty grip as he held out Jackson’s own desk chair for him to sit down.

“The board is hiring us to help with ThermaTek’s efficiency,” Slavonich said, all but gliding around the desk to take a seat, gracefully, opposite him. There were two worrisome words in that sentence. One was “efficiency”; the board was clearly gunning for him after the bad year they’d just finished. The second was the word “us” — Jackson realized, upon looking around the room, that he and Slavonich weren’t alone. He’d nearly missed seeing the man sitting on the sofa in the corner, dark and quiet with an undercut and glasses. He waved shyly at them, adjusting the massive pile of binders balanced on his knees.

“We are to be making your company, ah, great again, I think?” Slavonich finished. He laughed, a sound completely at odds with the overall mood of the room. Neither Jackson nor the third man joined him.

“Ivan!” Slavonich suddenly barked, cutting off his own laughter. “The figures. _Davai, davai!”_ The man on the sofa flinched, snapping into action as he shuffled through the binders, finally pulling out a thick black folder and handing it to Slavonich. “Here, you see,” Slavonich said, “last quarter you are nearly ten million in the red. Such bloat, such bloat! You are spending all the moneys on champagne and caviar, no doubt, Jackson?” He laughed once again. Jackson wanted to strangle him.

“It was a rough quarter,” he said, keeping his expression as cordial as humanly possible. His eye twitched regardless. Slavonich tutted, shutting the folder and getting to his feet.

“Vanya and I will run the numbers,” he said, still smiling that uncanny smile. “We will be in the touch.”

He turned and sailed out the door. The man on the sofa — Ivan, apparently — got up to follow him, but he tripped over the coffee table and sent the binders flying.

“Ah, I’m s-sorry,” he said, getting to his hands and knees and gathering his materials back into one pile. He was soft-spoken, without the heavy accent that mangled Slavonich's speech. Jackson cast a disdainful look at the binder that had landed at his feet, but made no move to help him.

“Is he always like that?” he demanded, looking down his nose at the accountant. Ivan looked up, blinking anxiously behind his glasses.

“Afraid so,” he murmured, shuffling his papers back into order. “He was worse, before he started drinking.” Jackson snorted, and the accountant looked up at him.

“Look…” Ivan looked nervously over his shoulder at the open door before slipping over to quietly close it. “Andrei… he can be a lot, but there’s one thing that might get you on his good side.” Jackson raised an impatient eyebrow at him, and he continued, “Figure skating. Well, specifically, bets on figure skating.”

Now this was genuinely surprising. Figure skating? He knew so little about it, other than that his son was persistent in twirling around in spandex every other day, in _public_ , no less. He wished, not for the first time, that he’d managed to convince the boy to go for hockey instead, all those years ago. At least then he’d be playing a proper man’s sport.

“So?” Jackson demanded.

“So…” Ivan looked over his shoulder again. “So this weekend, he’ll be placing a few bets at the Mid-Regional competition. He calls it an… ‘investment opportunity’.”

Jackson had to admit, his ears pricked up at those words. Not for nothing, but he’d won quite a few online poker tournaments in his time. “Figure skating…” he mused. “That how he make his money?”

Ivan waggled his hand uncertainly. “It’s more of a side project for now. The scoring is any man’s guess before the skating happens, but the real money is in corporate sponsorships. He’s got his eye on this guy he calls his… ‘pet’. Evan Carroll, former junior national champion. He’s in the middle of a comeback, and he’s competing this weekend.”

“Why does he care about figure skating?” scoffed Jackson. “Why should _I?_ ”

“I know,” Ivan said, grimacing. “It ain’t the most dignified sport. It’s Carroll’s money he’s really after. At his peak, he made five million per season in sponsorships alone. And that’s not even counting the prize money for all his gold medals.”

Jackson swore that his pants tightened at the size of that sum.

“That’s _if_ the kid wins, I suppose,” he couldn’t help but point out.

“Yeah,” Ivan said with a shrug, “but. When Andrei was a kid, he was a champion himself. He knows how the game is played. Well… he knows how to play the Russian, if you know what I mean.”

Jackson looked at him blankly. “I don’t.”

“2002 Winter Olympics,” Ivan muttered, leaning in. “Judges had pre-picked the Russians to win gold in pairs skating.”

Jackson scoffed. “Of course, I knew that.” So Slavonich planned to pay off a judge, did he? “But even if Carroll wins, how does Slavonich plan to get his hands on any of that money?

“Carroll’s in the market for a business partner,” Ivan said. “So far Andrei’s the only one who’s made him an offer.”

“How much?”

Ivan looked uncomfortable for a long moment. “$30,000. Plus he’s spending another 10 on the judge.”

That little, for the chance to make a cool couple million? Jackson’s eyes glinted, the gears in his brilliant mind turning. A freak like Slavonich making all that money— it was almost sickening. What would it take, he wondered, to get that champion skater into his pocket?

“This champion. What did you say his name was?”

 

\--

 

“He’s on the hook,” Otabek murmured under his breath as he caught up with Victor in the building lobby, removing his glasses and sticking them in his shirt pocket.

“I heard,” Victor replied quietly, walking out by his side. “Good work.” He touched his bangs that were currently pasted to the side of his head with gel, and he winced. He couldn’t wait to wash this awful stuff out.

Meeting the mark in person always changed the tone of the game they were running, just a little. In this case, meeting Jackson had only solidified Victor’s desire to do something to wipe him from the face of the earth to the best of his ability (which was not inconsiderable).

Jackson was... worse than oily. Oily was nothing new in their line of work, but Jackson was a whole different beast. Slicked-back hair, pressed Armani suit that, despite the cut, didn’t actually fit him quite right. Too broad in the shoulders, the sleeves a hair too long. And the way he glared at everything around him, like he viewed himself as a tyrannical king, like he had the power to end anyone with a word. Everything about Jackson had made Victor's skin crawl from the first sight of him.

It would be satisfying, letting the man hoist himself with his own petard.

The poor bastard.

“Bugs are planted in his office too, Phichit,” Victor said for the benefit of those listening through their earbuds. “Let me know when he makes a wrong move.”

“Feeds are already live,” Phichit said over comms. “Man, pulling up his personal finances, there’s something _hinky_ going on. Apparently, last month someone paid him $1 million, but as to who or why, no clue yet.”

“Yurio, you broke into their records office earlier. Any clue where that money came from?”

“…Not that I saw, no.” The young man’s voice sounded disgruntled, and Victor sighed.

“What is it now, Yurio?”

“You already know what I’m going to say, Victor.”

Victor did, and he smiled benignly to himself. He’d already been treated to an earful about how he was, in the thief’s words, “turning what should be a smash-and-grab into the most fucking dramatic production of _all time_ ”. And honestly, if it had only been about retrieving the stolen data for their client, that’s where he would have left it.

But Yuuri had convinced him otherwise the other night, when he’d straddled Victor’s thighs on the sofa.

(As a persuasive technique, he supposed it was one of the best Yuuri had in his toolbox.)

“Victor,” Yuuri had said, cupping Victor’s neck in his hands, staring seriously into his eyes. “I don’t _just_ want us to take back the data. I want his company. His freedom. His _dignity_. I want us to _destroy him_.”

And so their goals had evolved.

(Yuuri was _very_ persuasive.)

 

\--

 

This had been the last thing Yuuri had wanted when he’d made his request.

It wasn’t often that Yuuri found himself sucked so thoroughly into the kind of savior fantasies that Victor had entertained ever since they’d started working together. Helping people felt nice, but he rarely felt called to _save_ people the way Victor did.

But something inside him had shifted when he’d seen Lachlan Jackson – arrogant, pampered rich brat who sneered at Yuuri every time they shared the same ice – cowering in front of his father. While undercover as Evan Carroll, he’d run into the Jacksons at the ice rink the day before. From his place in the shadows, Yuuri had overheard the way Jackson talked to his son: the berating, the verbal abuse, the slurs hurled in his direction all because he loved to figure skate. He’d seen the way the young teen had shrunk in the face of his father, that loathing reflected in his own expression.

Yuuri had come straight back to their hotel suite – the crew’s temporary headquarters while in Portland – and made his appeal to Victor. There was a fire burning inside him that seemed to demand Jackson’s blood.

And Victor seemed to think the best way for them to get it was for Yuuri to utterly humiliate himself.

“You want _me_ to be the champion,” he repeated late that night, as the five of them stood around a local ice rink they’d broken into. “ _Me._ ”

“You used to skate,” Victor said offhand, lacing himself into a pair of rental skates they’d borrowed from behind the desk.

“Yeah, as a kid!” Yuuri yelped. “I haven’t had skates on my feet in over a decade, and you’re asking me to pass myself off as a former junior national champion?”

He was taking frenetic laps around the rink, trying to get re-used to the feeling of ice under his feet. He, too, was wearing rental skates, although that would certainly have to change before the competition.

“We’re running the fiddle game,” he continued, skidding to a snowplow stop to face Victor at the entrance. “Why isn’t Yuri doing this? He’s got more ballet experience than I do, and he’s smaller, he’d… he’d probably be better…”

Yuri snorted, though he didn’t deny Yuuri’s point. “While I’d love to show you up in skating, piggy,” he said, tossing his long blond braid over his shoulder, “I kind of have to break into the vault while everyone’s distracted by the competition. Can’t be in two places at once.”

“ _Is_ this a fiddle game?” Phichit wondered aloud, tapping out some sort of coding into his Netbook. “I thought we were running the Sochi Shuffle.”

“Not without four more days of prep and a hand saw, we’re not,” Otabek said.

“Guys, enough,” Yuuri said, pressing his fingers into his forehead. “This is… it’s not going to work. I’m not good enough to fool _professionals._ Even if Phichit is one of the judges.” Victor had asked Phichit to pose as the judge that Jackson would be buying off, and the hacker, ever eager for a chance to redeem himself for his disastrous grifting past, jumped at the chance.

Victor stepped onto the ice and took tentative, toddling steps in Yuuri’s direction, arms held out to his sides so he wouldn’t topple over.

“Yuuri,” he said, once he’d gotten close enough to take Yuuri by the shoulders. “Yuuri, relax. You’re going to be wonderful. You always are. Just… think of this as another job. Another character.”

Yuuri took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, trying to keep his heart from pounding in his chest.

“But it’s _not_ another job,” he said miserably. “I can… I can pose as a surgeon, as an antiquities expert, as a burlesque star… that’s a matter of the right attitude and outfit. But this…”

“This is the same,” Victor assured him, leaning in close. “Exactly the same.” He pulled Yuuri in for a hug, holding him close to his chest. “Remember when you joined the Mariinsky to steal that, that Gauguin?”

Yuuri smiled, in spite of himself. “It was a Klimt.”

Victor beamed, one hand gently stroking Yuuri’s hair. “You did that. You can do this, too.”

Yuuri still wasn’t entirely sure that he could, but he trusted Victor. He’d never let him down, not once in all the years they’d known each other.

Time for Yuuri to uphold his end of that trust.

“Okay,” he relented, backing slowly out of the embrace. “I think I can whip something up.”

 

\--

 

“Now, before we make a deal,” Jackson was saying as he and Otabek approached the rink in the main arena the following day, “I’d like to get to see this ‘champion’ of yours for myself.”

“You’ve seen the videos, yeah?” Otabek had gone to Jackson’s office in the morning with a tablet, showing him video uploads of Yuuri that were supposedly winning programs from earlier in his career.

(They’d been doctored all to hell thanks to Phichit’s video manipulation software, but Jackson definitely didn’t know that.)

“That was years ago,” Jackson replied with a dismissive wave. “Before I become this chink’s patron, I need to see that he’s still in working order.”

Otabek felt his face reflexively contort into a snarl at the slur, but quickly forced his features to relax into something neutral. _Easy_ , he coached himself. Jackson’s trap was already set. All Otabek had to do was lead him into it.

“Ah, there he is,” Otabek said, choosing not to respond to Jackson’s statement as the two men clambered down the bleachers. Yuuri was in the middle of the rink, tracing lazy figure eights. “Evan! Can you run the program for us?”

Yuuri skated to center rink, an arrogant smile already in place.

 

\--

 

Meanwhile, Victor was being taken on a tour of the vault, accompanied by Jackson’s head of security. Their brief inspection a couple of days prior had left Yuri with nowhere near enough intel to be able to break in, and so Victor had been sent to scout, under the pretext that he was interested in the amount of money ThermaTek had spent on such an extensive security system in an otherwise unremarkable piece of property.

“Please be explaining to me why the big big vault in the ice house, da?” Victor said to the head of security, mangling the English syntax to the best of his ability.

“Many items in the vault are temperature-sensitive,” the man explained, moving along the sub-basement corridor, polished shoes tapping on the concrete floors. “The vault is also highly temperature-controlled, kept below freezing at all times. Here at ThermaTek we’re always looking for the next innovative uses for high-end heating and cooling systems. This vault is the prototype for what will become the next generation in theft deterrence.”

“Very clever,” Victor noted, filing that bit away. “Any thief that comes inside the vault will be like popsicle.” The head of security laughed, and Victor did along with him, more to stay in character than anything else.

“This door is more of an airlock than anything else,” he explained, approaching the door Otabek had fingerprinted the day before. “Prevents the cold from getting out, you see?” Victor nodded, and the guard got in close to punch in the code. Although he covered the keypad with his free hand, Victor felt sure that the first number was a “4” and the last was a “zero”. He felt some satisfaction in cutting Yuri’s possible combinations from 24 to 2.

Although the short hallway they stepped into was not the vault itself, Victor could already feel the chill as the air temperature dropped, and he shivered reflexively. The guard looked over and chuckled.

“Cold, huh? Just wait until you see inside the vault.” He pulled on a thick pair of gloves, while Victor pulled his peacoat tighter around himself. “Sensors in this hallway for motion as well as heat. We’ve got it rigged so that the alarm is tripped only if both are detected.”

“In case of accidental hot spot, no doubt,” Victor said, trying to keep his teeth from chattering. “Very clever.”

The guard pulled a device from his pocket, punching in a few numbers. “A laser grid as well — it can be deactivated with this device only.”

“Phew,” came a pleased voice from over his comms. “Been a while since I’ve dealt with a good laser grid.”

 

\--

 

Back in the van, Phichit and Yuri were hovering over monitors, listening closely to the intel Victor was picking up with his walkthrough. They’d affixed a button cam to the front of his coat, enabling them to see what they were dealing with as well as hear the explanations.

“Been a while since you had to deal with one I couldn’t hack, you mean,” Phichit said, popping a corn chip into his mouth. “I can hook into the system, try to scramble the signals a little so you’ll have that much less to deal with.”

“Ugh, if you _must_ ,” Yuri said, slouching against the van’s wall. Phichit actually considered that progress. Working together had been a learning curve for all of them, but Yuri still seemed to have the hardest time accepting that he didn’t have to do everything alone anymore.

Yuri fished in his own snack bag before abruptly letting out a disgusted gasp. “Dammit, Phichit! Your rats got into my food again!”

“Aw!” Phichit let his attention divert from the screens for just a moment. “Don’t call Oreo a rat!” he scolded, gently fishing a black and white hamster out of Yuri’s bag of cheese curls. This particular hamster, one of five Phichit owned, happened to be Yuri’s namesake in a way. Phichit had gotten the five of them when their crew had first started working together, and Victor had immediately swooped in and decided to call one ‘Oreo,’ since it sounded so similar to Yuri’s hated nickname. “He’s as much your son as he is mine!”

“That thing is _not_ my son!”

“Poor little Oreo,” Phichit cooed, letting the hamster curl up next to his keyboard. “Daddy’s so mean to him. Hush, hush. Papa’s here now.”

“You gotta stop letting those things run around the van!” Yuri roared. “It’s unsanitary!”

“Shhhhh!” Phichit waved in Yuri’s face, heedless of the dangerous way he snarled. “They’re talking again!”

Victor’s atrocious Russian accent drifted back over their earbuds. “Ahh, and here we have the vault itself, yes?” The image on Phichit’s monitor, sent via Victor’s button cam, showed a door that looked much like a standard steel bank vault, complete with a massive wheel that had to be turned to unlock the door.

“Yes,” they heard the guard say, and while his back was turned, they both saw Victor quickly coat the motion sensor with aerosol hairspray he’d pulled from his pocket.

“That might interfere some with the signal,” Yuri mused, “but it won’t be enough.” He stretched his hands in front of him, knuckles popping, and Phichit made a face at the sound.

“I don’t know that I can spoof the signal enough to make the sensor think your body temp is 40 degrees,” he warned. “It may have to be enough.”

“It’s fine,” Yuri said, moving onto cracking his neck. “Already working on a plan.” He tapped his forehead once before lapsing back into silence.

Phichit shook his head. “Some people do crosswords, you know,” he muttered under his breath.

The guard went onto explain the combination of the safe, how the ten-digit alpha-numeric code changed every two minutes. “Only I have the combination at any given time,” the head of security explained, holding up his phone with a satisfied grin before slipping it back into his pocket.

“That’s cute,” Phichit chuckled. “Victor, use that phone I gave you.” Their earbuds were treated to another string of terrible Runglish as Victor asked more questions of the guard, all the while holding his mobile device next to the pocket the guard had placed his phone into. Within seconds, the device on Phichit’s dashboard, a duplicate of the one in Victor’s hand, flashed the words SIGNAL DUPLICATED across the screen.

“Now we’ll get the codes, too,” Yuri confirmed, flashing his teeth over at Phichit. “Nice.”

“Saves you having to hold a stethoscope to the lock’s tumblers,” Phichit chuckled, and Yuri muttered, “Like anyone uses stethoscopes anymore.”

There was a great rattling as the guard turned the wheel sealing the vault shut, letting the door creak open. They saw the guard flinch and start to shiver as the cold air hit his face, and then half of the camera view was abruptly blocked as Victor, apparently, crossed his arms to keep in the warmth.

“Victor, I need a clear picture,” Phichit said apologetically. “You gotta uncross your arms so I can see the box.” Victor made a noise so quiet that only they could hear it, but the picture was soon clear again. It looked much like the inside of a bank vault, with safe deposit boxes ranging from shoebox-sized to ones more akin to a locker.

“Boxes are named after skating moves,” Yuri said, checking one of the documents he’d stolen from the ThermaTek offices. He’d found a record, when breaking in, of descriptions of deliveries made to the ice arena, and he and Phichit had worked together to find out which ones were likely for the vault and where they might be. “Victor, get me a clear shot of box 3Lz, and you’re clear.”

Their view shifted, even as they could hear Victor’s teeth chattering, and Phichit zoomed in on the box in question. It was one of the smaller safe deposit boxes, a single keyhole the only feature on an otherwise smooth surface.

“Th-this is seeming a great d-deal of trouble for one little vault,” Victor said to the guard through chattering teeth. “P-perhaps this is an example of money waste, da?”

“Again,” said the head of security, “not my department.” He pointed into the vault, seeming similarly unwilling to step inside. “Vibration sensors set in here too. If a thief manages to get this far, they set off a vibration sensor, the door automatically seals and locks from the outside. They’ll get hypothermia within minutes.”

“ _Bozhe moy_ ,” Victor murmured, and judging from the way Yuri’s expression shifted, Phichit thought he was probably thinking the same. “The thief dies, then?”

“It’s a possibility,” the head of security said, with all the same care of saying that it was a possibility that it might rain. “More likely, the police arrive to find the thief unconscious.”

They heard the creak of the vault sealing once more, the guard and Victor still talking, but a second voice cut in over comms as well.

“So, Mr. Jackson. He’s as good as the videos, right?”

 

 

\--

 

Victor had gotten one thing dead wrong when he’d reassured Yuuri the night before. Posing as Evan Carroll, former junior national champion figure skater, was much, _much_ more than a matter of finding the right attitude and outfit.

The routine he skated now was adapted from the last free skate he’d done when he was still a freestyle skater, back at the age of 13. His body had changed so much since then that he was no longer capable of doing jumps more difficult than a double, not on such short notice. But this was a local competition; it would be enough to make him appear competent, at least, if not world-class.

Victor had changed up both the music and the theme from when he’d skated it as a teenager, though.

“Eros?” Yuri Plisetsky had scoffed last night upon hearing Victor’s plan. “You _do_ realize you’re the only one taken in when the piggy crooks a finger, right?”

“Don’t be so sure,” Victor had said, throwing Yuuri a wink that had made him flush. “Eros” had been the name Victor had given Yuuri when they’d first met, five years earlier. It figures Victor would use even this opportunity as a chance to reuse their old private joke. It might have even been a little romantic.

Yuuri skated now with all of Evan’s cockiness, focusing more on footwork and spins than on jumps. It felt entirely different from the ballet he was used to practicing, the weight of the skates on his feet as unfamiliar as the ice’s slick surface; but in another way, it wasn’t too far off. The program was sort of a story within a story, encompassing a sexuality, a confidence, that Evan, not Yuuri, wanted to convey to the world.

Yuuri was very good at telling stories.

The violins of his program’s music sang their way to an abrupt halt, and Yuuri locked his arms around himself in an embrace, feeling flushed from exertion. At the side of the rink, the mark applauded enthusiastically, echoed by Otabek’s character’s more sedate claps.

“Damn,” Robert Jackson said as Yuuri skated over to him. “Never would’ve expected that from a Chinese.”

Evan wouldn’t have bothered to correct him, so neither did Yuuri, taking the water bottle and towel Otabek offered him.

“Better keep your wife away from the show tomorrow,” he said, pitching his voice a hair lower than normal, corner of his mouth turning upward in a smirk. As expected, Jackson only guffawed in solidarity, and Yuuri sneered at the man in his mind. Jackson wasn’t the sort of man who could be swayed with mentions of his family. Victor’s first plan, in fact, had been to approach Lachlan with promises of figure skating stardom, thinking it to be an easy way to fleece his father out of thousands of dollars. But just spending thirty seconds with father and son in the same room made Yuuri know that that would never work.

“I hear you’re the favorite tomorrow,” Jackson commented, and Yuuri shrugged, taking a gulp from his water bottle.

“So they say.”

Jackson only smiled, revealing crooked teeth, and Yuuri fought to keep his expression cool as their eyes locked.

“I’ve heard about you, you know,” Jackson said, referring to the stories that he’d read in Phichit’s articles and had told to him by Otabek as they watched Yuuri skate. “Injured the first year of seniors. This is supposed to be your big comeback.”

“What’s your point?” Yuuri sighed impatiently.

“I’m willing to sponsor you.” Yuuri let his expression shift to one of cool surprise. “Become your business partner. I think ThermaTek could do a lot to help build your brand.”

Yuuri laughed, skeptical. “What does an HVAC company want with a figure skater?”

“Oh no, Mr. Carroll,” Jackson said, fishing out his business card. “ThermaTek also manufactures the finest outerwear money can buy. Imagine, a 30-second commercial, you wearing a ThermaTek fleece jacket on the ice as you run through that program.”

Yuuri nodded, pretending to be interested. “So then. What’s in it for you?”

Jackson guffawed. “Exposure, of course! Not to mention knowing we’re helping a talented young man such as yourself rebuild his career after that _devastating injury_.” Yuuri knew that wasn't the reason Jackson was interested in him, but the con relied on him buying that story.

Yuuri exchanged a look with Otabek. “At least think about it, Evan,” Otabek said. “That Coca-Cola money won’t last forever.”

Yuuri crossed his arms, looking down at the ice.

“Send Ivan over with the paperwork,” he said to Jackson after a long moment. “I’ll look it over.”

“Splendid!” Jackson stretched across the barrier, pumping Yuuri’s hand. “I’m sure you won’t regret it, kid.”

“No,” Yuuri said, giving him Evan’s trademark crooked grin. “I’m sure I won’t.”

 

—

 

Victor emerged from the sub-basement a little while later, rubbing his arms to warm himself back up. “Thank your boss for the tour,” he said to the deputy security guard, a tall man with a shaggy undercut. “If I am having more questions I will be letting you know.”

“You got it, Russkie,” the man said, firing cheeky finger guns in Victor’s direction. He frowned a little, the gesture tugging at something in his memory; but he brushed it off, handing back his visitor’s badge.

Over comms, he could hear the “negotiations” Otabek had resumed with the mark, now that Yuuri had agreed to be sponsored by him. Otabek was requesting a check for $50,000, to cover the initial investment in “Evan” and to cover the bribe for the judge, who would be played the next day by Phichit. Phichit and Yurio, in the meantime, were arguing about something to do with exit points and hamsters, which were maybe two different things. It was hard to keep track with four other voices in his head sometimes.

Everything, as far as he could tell, was progressing perfectly.

But a voice behind him changed all that.

“Hello, Victor.”

It had been six months since he’d last heard that voice. Victor froze in his tracks. 

“Is this fate?” he gasped with cheerfulness he didn’t feel. He made sure he was positively beaming as he spun on his heels, facing his former coworker. “Christophe! Such a lovely surprise!”

Any background chatter of his teammates over comms immediately fell silent. From inside the arena, he heard the unmistakable sound of Yuuri slipping on the ice and falling hard.

Christophe Giacometti walked toward Victor, all fluid sinew. “You haven’t changed a bit, my friend,” he purred, giving Victor a smile that was almost salacious. He embraced Victor, kissing the air over his cheeks. “How have you been since Taipei? Back on the straight and narrow, I’d hope?”

Over his earbud, a stream of Russian curses began coming through, quickly joined in stereo by an explosion of furious Thai. Victor ignored Yurio and Phichit completely. “There’s never been anything straight about me, Chris,” Victor said smoothly, “and you know it.”

He gave Chris a cheeky wink and purposely ignored the reference to their last meeting. How Chris had uncovered their operation, all but exposed them and made good on the dozens of outstanding warrants they each had on their names. Victor had had to pull some particularly creative maneuvers to get them all out of Taiwan alive, and Phichit had had to blow up their last headquarters – their home – just to put the authorities off their trail.

He’d never expected to see Chris again.

Victor had known Chris for nearly a decade. They’d met back when he worked for ISU, often partnering together on some of the more prominent claims investigations. Together, they’d saved ISU millions of dollars on fraudulent claims, thanks to Victor’s single-minded determination and Chris’s ability to charm the truth out of anyone. They’d been good friends, before Victor had realized he couldn’t stomach their company or their industry anymore.

He and Chris were still good friends, in theory. Their relationship had just gotten a lot more… passive-aggressive in the last year.

“So, let me guess what you’re doing here,” Victor continued mildly. “Some overconcerned parent has insured their child’s skates, and you’re here to protect their investment?”

“ISU does have investments here that they’d like me to keep safe,” Chris replied, but did not elaborate. Victor didn’t need him to. Hell, Chris hadn’t needed to say anything to Victor beyond “hello” for him to know what his old friend was here for. “And you, Victor? Don’t tell me you’ve developed a sudden interest in figure skating.”

“It’s a beautiful sport,” Victor replied, not missing a beat. “And I was in town.”

Chris let out a long, theatrical sigh.

“Victor, my friend,” he said in an exaggerated display of sorrow. “I do miss you. I’d thought your association with that band of thieves in Taipei was, well, a psychotic break, perhaps. After what happened to your mother—“ Victor felt his smile freeze, but refused to drop it. “—no one would have been surprised. Feltsman was all too willing to forgive you for it, if only you handed those villains to the authorities and came back. But now we’re hearing the most _dreadful_ rumors that you’ve become nothing more than a common criminal.”

“Common?” Victor raised an eyebrow. “I’m wounded, Christophe.”

Chris kept his eyes fixed on Victor’s face. Victor didn’t dare so much as blink.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Victor,” he said, still maintaining his cordial tone. “I’d _hate_ to think you’re getting yourself in trouble again.”

He turned on his heel, leaving Victor to his own devices.

“Yeah,” Victor muttered to himself, as well as the four thieves listening in through his headset. “Wouldn’t want that, would we.”

He should have known this job was going too smoothly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun DUN
> 
> I feel like I made roughly a billion changes to various plot points in this chapter, so if anything strikes you guys as internally inconsistent, please let me know. Also, kudos and comments are love!! They're the fuel that keeps me going. :)
> 
> talk to me about yoi, leverage, or this au (or anything really) at [phoenixrei](https://phoenixrei.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heist finally gets underway, and Chris isn't the only obstacle the team runs into. Yuri finally lives out his dream of backflipping through lasers. Phichit goes undercover as a YouTuber. Makkachin is a bonafide (bone-afide) grifter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is now officially the third in a series, and I really recommend looking up the following fics if some of the backstory doesn't quite make sense to you.
> 
> \- For more on Victor's decision to become a thief, and the story of how he and Yuuri met and fell in love, check out ["The Genevan Paso Doble"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10866552).  
> \- For backstory on Taipei, and Yuuri resolving a decade-long identity crisis, check out ["The Westchester Samba"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11079732). 
> 
> I've made it all into a series for convenience. Sorry that the side stories I write somehow end up preceding the one I started writing FIRST. orz.

“We’ve got to pull the plug.”

“Yuuri,” Victor said, watching his lover pace back and forth in the hotel suite that was their temporary headquarters. “Chris makes things… complicated, yes, but that’s no reason to let him stop us.“

The tension in the hotel suite was palpable that night as the five of them convened. The nerves of the other four after having seen Chris was more than understandable; they were used to seeing him as their enemy, a threat. There’d been more than one close call for each of them where Chris had nearly had them arrested, not counting the debacle in Taipei. But for Victor, it was much more complicated.

Chris had been his friend, his only confidant, for so many years, before he’d met Yuuri. They’d relied on each other for everything from a helping hand in an investigation to a shoulder to cry on after a bad breakup. And Victor had been the one to utterly obliterate that trust between them when he’d become a thief. He knew he could outsmart Chris — well, he _hoped_ he could outsmart Chris — but even being on the opposite sides of the law couldn’t erase the decade of their friendship, even if the blood between them was currently too bad for them to openly acknowledge it.

Yuuri, meanwhile, was still wound up, clearly trying to puzzle out his own solution to the Chris problem. “Have Yuri go into the vault tonight,” he said, still watching the floor as he paced. “Yura, are you ready to make the play?”

“Sure,” Yuri said, methodically picking and re-locking one of his many padlocks – a nervous habit. “But…”

“You’re the one who wanted Jackson taken out,” Otabek said, looking unusually worried as he tracked the grifter’s movements with his eyes. “Now you’re okay with leaving him alone?”

Yuuri shook his head, tense. “We’re as good as blown,” he muttered. One of his hands clenched in his hair. “We can’t do anything if Chris is watching us. Jackson’s practically untouchable by now, but he hasn’t seen Yuri or Phichit yet. If you two can get the drive back tonight, we’ll at least get our client’s data back and have 50k to show for it…”

“Yuuri, get a grip!” Phichit got to his feet, barring Yuuri’s way so he couldn’t keep pacing. “Listen. You remember that mystery million that showed up in his accounts? I finally figured out where it came from.”

“How?” Victor demanded, distracted from Yuuri’s nerves for the moment.

“I cross-checked the arena’s deliveries with payment dates, used footage from CCTV cameras to do facial recognition on delivery guys —“ Phichit waved it away, irritated. “Not the point! Money’s from the Bratva.” Otabek swore under his breath, but otherwise the team was silent, digesting this new information.

“What the hell is the Russian mob doing with him?” Yuri demanded.

“I don’t _know_ , Baby Yuri,” Phichit snapped, uncharacteristically on edge. “The Bratva don’t exactly fill out the memos in their checkbook. ‘One million for ganking that druglord in Moscow’. Like. Really?” He turned back to Yuuri, seizing his shoulders. “Yuuri, we just stole fifty thousand dollars from a dude with ties to the _Bratva_. How do you think that’s gonna go, unless we can get rid of him tomorrow?”

Yuuri opened his mouth as though trying to come up with a counterargument, but he said nothing, his lip quivering. Victor got to his feet.

“Yuuri,” he said softly, his hand hovering over Yuuri’s shoulder, but not touching him just yet. “Come with me. Huh?” He gestured toward the bedroom they were sharing in the suite, and after a brief hesitation, Yuuri led the way there, stiffly, Victor right behind him.

“Relax,” he said softly once he’d shut the door. “Breathe, _radost’ moya_. Can you breathe for me?” He demonstrated several deep breaths for Yuuri, encouraging him to copy him.

He’d never, _ever_ seen Yuuri get so anxious in the middle of a con. His anxiety, when it hit, was much more commonplace before a job was truly underway, and sometimes, if a job was particularly stressful, he would crash at the very end of it, once the danger had passed. That had certainly been the case after Taiwan. Victor had learned through trial and error what to do and what not to do to help him through it, but it didn’t stop his heart from breaking every time he found Yuuri struggling to breathe for the fear in his heart.

Yuuri sucked in several deep breaths at Victor’s prompting, staring at him with wild eyes that barely seemed to see him. But still, he followed Victor’s directions, his breathing gradually evening out until he seemed okay, but exhausted.

“Can I hold you?” Victor asked, once it seemed like the worst was over. Yuuri responded by flinging himself into Victor’s arms, grabbing onto him like he could disappear inside Victor.

“Vityenka,” he whispered into Victor’s ear before burying his face in Victor’s throat. “I’m sorry… I just…”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Victor soothed, running his fingers through Yuuri’s hair. Yuuri huffed out a breath, annoyed, before pulling back just enough to meet Victor’s eyes.

“Just—last time we met Chris…” Yuuri shook his head, swallowing hard. “W-we… _I_ … almost lost you, and I can’t… I can’t…”

Victor felt cold at the fear and grief in his fiancé’s voice. “That wasn’t Chris’s fault,” he said, keeping his voice gentle. Yuuri shuddered.

“You’re _defending_ him? Victor, he’s the one who got Interpol involved! They could have _killed_ you!”

“But they didn’t,” he said, which he knew was small comfort. Yuuri clearly agreed.

“It’s too risky, Victor. Chris _knows_ you, knows how you think. He knows what we’re capable of. We won’t be able to put anything past him. He could call Interpol again, he could tip off Jackson, he could… he could hide in our goddamn closet until he catches one of us saying something incriminating…”

“I won’t let that happen.”

Yuuri squeezed his eyes shut. “Victor, I know you’ve kept a lot of promises, but even you can’t guarantee that one.”

“Watch me,” Victor said fiercely, resting his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders. Hesitating, Yuuri looked up at Victor.

“You… already have a plan,” he said hesitantly, eyes darting back and forth between Victor’s, trying to read them. “We moving to Plan B?”

Victor smiled at him. “We’ll call it ‘Plan M’.”

Yuuri blinked. “Doesn’t… doesn’t Phichit usually die in Plan M?”

“…Plan L, then.”

A laugh punched its way out of Yuuri’s lungs, surprising them both. He curved into Victor’s embrace for a long moment, and Victor cradled him close.

“You’ve really got this?” Yuuri asked in a small voice, after a minute or so had passed. “You’ve… got a plan?”

Victor flashed him a confident grin. “I’ve always got a plan.” He brushed the backs of his fingers against Yuuri’s cheek, and Yuuri closed his eyes, exhaling slowly.

“Okay,” he breathed. “I trust you.” Then he leaned up, brushing aside Victor’s bangs to brush his lips against Victor’s forehead, silently blessing his lover’s brilliant mind. Victor blushed as he accepted the kiss.

“Thank you, darling. But is that the only kiss I get?” He raised a cheeky eyebrow, and Yuuri chuckled again, more genuine this time.

“I guess you get one more,” he teased, before pressing a warm, trusting kiss to Victor’s mouth. Victor smiled into it, his hand carding through Yuuri’s hair as he kept his beloved held close.

It was several long minutes before they emerged, ready to deliver their plan to their waiting teammates.

 

\--

 

 

The heist itself, it had been decided, would take place on the day of the figure skating competition, when their activity might be able to better blend in with the chaos of thousands of spectators and dozens of high-strung competitors all gathered in the same place. Yuri would be glad to finally have this job over and done with, he decided. Between the piggy turning into a nervous wreck and _Christophe Giacometti,_ of all people, showing his face again, it’d be a relief to put Portland behind them.

The arena was already crowded by the time he arrived with Otabek at his side. Security guards were stationed at every entrance, and the biggest one was stationed at the entrance to the backstage area where skaters were meant to go. He and Otabek got in that line, a gear bag slung over Yuri’s shoulder, blending in the crowd as best they could with their getups.

“All right, boys,” Phichit said over comms, secure for the moment in his van. “We ready for this?”

“That’s my line, Phichit,” they heard Victor say, from inside the arena. He was sitting boldly in plain view of security cameras, with Makkachin at his side posing as his therapy dog.

“I wasn’t talking to _you_ ,” Phichit scoffed, and Yuri nearly choked on his spit.

“Did you—!” His shout drew too much attention, and he lowered his voice immediately, turning toward Otabek as though he were talking to him. “Chu, put those _fucking rats_ back in their cage.”

“Ayu can’t hear you over the sound of how good these pumpkin seeds are,” the hacker sang.

“Hug him for me,” Otabek said, and Yuri almost choked again. The _traitor._

“Chu, when this is done,” he hissed under his breath as he and Otabek approached the front of the line, “I’m gonna take those pumpkin seeds and choke you with them.”

“Looking forward to it, Baby Yuri.” Yuri huffed, silently fuming as he and Otabek shuffled forward in the line to the metal detector. Yuuri was already well ahead of them, entering alone. There was no reason for his character to pretend to know theirs, which is why he was going in without them. They were in touch through comms anyway if Fake Yuuri decided he really needed a hug, or whatever.

“Badges,” the guard grunted once they were at the front. Yuri let his mouth drop open, getting into character.

“Can you believe—!” He shook his head, letting his long blond hair fly around his face, fluffing the collar of his (faux) Siberian tiger fur coat. “Marcos!” He snapped his fingers, and Otabek immediately began kowtowing to him.

“Of course, sir. I’m so sorry, sir.” Otabek flashed a pleading look to the security guard. “Sir, please, we think we left our badges back at the hotel, but they said he was high profile enough that you’d be able to let him through anyway…”

The guard looked slow and stupid, much further down the totem pole than the shrewd man who’d shown Victor around the vault. “I’m… I’m sorry, but who…?”

“ _Julian Baranovsky_ ,” Otabek hissed, while Yuri turned up his nose, haughty. “The Ice Tiger of Minnesota?”

“O-oh.” The guard clearly hadn’t heard of him — no wonder, since he didn’t really exist — but he was at least trying to act like he had. “I’m… I’m sorry, Mr. Ice Tiger, but I can’t let anyone through without credentials.”

“Of all the—!” Yuri slipped his athletics bag from his shoulder, shoving it into Otabek’s stomach. Two or three other skaters nearby took a step back, scandalized, and Otabek shuffled to stand beside them, looking embarrassed by Yuri’s outburst. “Listen here, Paul Blart!” Yuri snapped, pointing accusingly at the security guard. “You stand there like you’re some kind of hot shit, holding the keys to the kingdom— do you even know what I go through for this sport? The _hours_ of training, the bruising, risking my _gorgeous neck_ —“ Here Yuri gestured to the pale column of his own throat, where it peeked through the fur. “—All for six minutes of artistry to entertain some… some funnel-cake gulping _turd buckets_ like you? Why, I ought to…”

“J-Julian!” Otabek interrupted his rant by waving a pair of badges in front of him. Inwardly, Yuri was impressed that he’d managed to pickpocket the two other skaters so quickly. Otabek’s lifts had improved so much since they’d started working together. “I found them in your bag. Sir, if you could…”

“Yes,” said the incredibly flustered guard. “Yes, of course. Ah, I just have to put that bag through a metal detector. If… if you don’t mind.”

Yuri sneered, but snapped his fingers again at Otabek, who hurriedly placed the duffel on the conveyor belt.

“I’ll remember this, Paul Blart,” he hissed over his shoulder at the guard, who visibly gulped. Otabek hurried in his wake, snatching their bag back up before heading down the hallway to the deserted men’s locker room.

“‘Ice Tiger of Minnesota’?” Yuri muttered to Otabek as they rounded the corner. “Seriously?”

“You try and do better next time, _Julian_ ,” he retorted as they stopped in front of a pair of lockers. Yuri stripped off his distinctive coat, sticking it inside one of the lockers to uncover the all-black ensemble he wore beneath it. Otabek, meanwhile, removed the waistcoat and ascot he’d worn as “Julian”’s choreographer, reaching inside his own locker to find a maintenance uniform.

“Entry’s up there?” he asked, nodding at the vent above their heads. Yuri nodded, passing Otabek a coiled four-pronged cable, each end fitted with an alligator clip.He then pulled on a fitted leather jacket that would be his only protection against the cold of the vault. Anything bulkier would seriously hinder his ability to move in the vents and circumvent the security system.

“Any sign of your, uh, ‘hockey players’?” he asked, still talking quietly so they might not draw attention to themselves in this deserted locker room. Otabek shook his head, grimacing.

“I don’t like it,” he said, zipping up the coveralls over the suit he’d worn and slipping the cable into a pocket. “I saw three of them on our initial recon, but they haven’t shown up since. It’s not Chris’s style to hire muscle like that, much less keep them out of sight. I don’t know what his game is.”

“Just keep them off my back,” Yuri said, fishing in his duffel for the things he needed. “We’ll worry about it later.”

The metal detector had made it nearly impossible for Yuri to bring in any of his normal rigging or equipment, and he already missed the comforting weight of the taser he usually kept on him. But thankfully, the thin blades of the skates gave him just enough cover to bring the things he _did_ need. His favorite set of lockpicks had been taped to the inside of one of the blades, carefully pried loose now and slipped into a pocket alongside a packet of chewing gum. The only other thing that was crucial to his plan of entry was the long piece of tinfoil that he’d wrapped around a peanut butter sandwich. He carefully unwrapped it now, discarding the sandwich and slipping the folded tinfoil into his back pocket.

Otabek looked thunderstruck. “ _That’s_ all you’re using to get into a secure storage facility?”

“Well… Chu’s gonna confuse the sensors,” Yuri admitted, begrudgingly. Phichit didn’t respond, though Yuri could hear his voice as he baby-talked in Thai to the hamsters, apologizing for slipping them back into their cage. “And… and I know you’ll help out if things get really hairy.”

He refused to make eye contact with Otabek, already feeling embarrassed that he needed anyone’s help at all. When he was in his teens, he’d been able to get in and out of the most secure facilities in the world with no help at all. Working with a team was… still strange, even after a year of this.

Otabek didn’t respond to this display of Yuri’s trust right away. After a moment, he flashed him a silent, stoic thumbs-up, and Yuri snorted, returning it.

“Now get me some Zamboni slush,” he said, ignoring his teammate’s look of dry skepticism. “And give me a boost.”

 

\--

 

Phichit had always known it would be worthwhile to cultivate an alias that was a social media superstar.

The debacle with the Columbian mob had been nearly eight months ago, and since then, Phichit had been eager to prove to the rest of the team that he wasn’t nearly as hopeless at grifting as they seemed to think he was. So in his spare time, in between jobs, he made short vlogs and uploaded them to a burner YouTube account that used randomly-generated IPs from all over the world, in order to mask his location. He gave them titles like “Top 10 Must-Haves For Festivus!” “Twenty-Eight Reasons To Contour!” “MY HAMSTERS ARE TRYING TO KILL ME!!” And so on. He’d uploaded something religiously on Tuesdays and Fridays ever since creating his account, no matter what was con was currently running.

He had amassed roughly three million subscribers in the past eight months. Damn, when he was good, he was _good_.

“It’s FellaLikeHella!” shrieked a pair of tween girls as they spotted him striding into the room, sporting FellaLikeHella’s trademark purple silk scarf and designer sunglasses. Phichit grinned at them.

“Stay in school!” he chirped, using his trademark sign-off, and the girls squealed in delight.

He swung by the VIP lounge, which was less of a “lounge” and more of a spare room with a card table and a bowl of pretzels, making small-talk with the other judges, most of whom were local instructors or former skaters. Jackson was already among them, schmoozing the judges in his role as owner of the arena.

“Ah, Mr. Dubois,” he greeted as he saw Phichit come into view. “I was hoping to catch you before the competition began.”

“Call me Tom,” Phichit said with a wink. “It’s an honor, Mr. Jackson.”

“Likewise,” Jackson said, clearly talking for the benefit of the other judges. Phichit grinned.

“You a fan?” he asked, quirking a tweezed eyebrow, and Jackson’s smarmy smile turned into a grimace for a split second.

“Of course,” he said, which Phichit knew was a flat-out lie. Jackson was so far out of his channel’s demographic that it was almost laughable that he _would_ be. But Jackson was looking for a reason to talk to him, that was all; if Phichit could troll him a little before their trap snapped shut, all the better.

Jackson seized Phichit’s hand, rocking it back and forth as though sawing wood. Phichit all but winced at the force of it. Had the man never learned how to shake hands?

“I hope we can count on your loyalty during this competition,” he said, through a grin that showed all his teeth. Phichit’s eyes went wide at the audacity of it, even if none of the other officials appeared to be listening. Sure, this was only a local figure skating competition, and yes, they’d conned the man into bribing him, but did he honestly not care about _appearing_ to have integrity?

“I’m always a man of my word,” he said, inclining his head toward Jackson in a slight nod. “If there’s one thing you can count on me for, it’s to be honest.” He hoped that was good enough to acknowledge the bribe that had been wired to him late last night as Jackson had chatted with Otabek, while still being enough to throw anyone who was listening in.

Jackson seemed completely oblivious to this nuance — or perhaps was choosing to disregard it, believing himself to be beyond reproach, no matter what he did. “Yes,” he agreed, still holding onto Phichit’s hand. “I am counting on your honest loyalty.”

Phichit had hacked the British treasury once, and even he hadn’t been so brazen about broadcasting his ill deeds. “Sure,” he said with a smile, carefully extricating himself from that sweaty grip. “Best of luck to your son this morning.”

Jackson’s face went blank for a moment, as though he’d genuinely forgotten his son was skating at all. “Yes,” he said, nodding once more at Phichit. “Yes, of course. I will pass on your regards, Mr. Dubois.”

He shuffled away, and Phichit fought the urge to pull a face at his back.

“Phichit,” he heard Victor say in his ear, “are you in position?”

“Copy,” he breathed, so quietly no one but his teammates would be able to hear him. “Just tell me when to pull the trigger, Victor.”

 

\--

 

Victor was sitting high in the stands at the stadium, maintaining a bird's eye view of the proceedings. The Zamboni was taking one final pass over the ice, smoothing it for the tot division competitors — wobbly three- and four-year olds showing off their forward swizzles — to take the ice.

“I will,” he said, resting two fingers on his upper lip to disguise the fact that he appeared to be talking to himself. All they needed was for this plan to proceed as smoothly as possible. With luck, they might even be out before the competition was well and truly underway.

“Victor.” Yuuri’s voice was tense in his ear. “Any sign of him?”

Though his fiancé hadn’t specified who “him” was, none of them needed him to. His eyes scanned the arena, which was filling up with parents and spectators, but Chris’s distinctive two-toned haircut was nowhere in sight. “None. Makka?”

Makkachin boofed quietly at his side, his head resting on Victor’s knee. Makkachin was hardly a trained guard dog, but he was very familiar with Chris and doubtless would have run to greet him if he’d seen him.

“Makka hasn’t seen him,” Victor said for his crew’s benefit.

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Yuuri said. He sounded calmer than he’d been last night, but there was still a tremor in his voice that made Victor’s heart go out to him. But surprisingly, it was Yurio who spoke next.

“Get it together, pork cutlet bowl,” he said, voice impossibly soft compared to the brash tones he usually took. From the slight rattling sounds coming through his channel, he was likely in the air vents already. “I’m almost to the vault’s antechamber. You can panic all you want once we’re on the first flight out of here.”

“I’m fine,” Yuuri said tersely. None of them really believed him. “That is,” he amended, “ _Evan_ is fine.”

“Um,” Otabek said, sounding a little uncertain. “ _You’re_ Evan.”

“Not really,” Yuuri muttered. He laced up his skates with an unusual ferocity, pulling hard at the strings. He imagined he was caging his anxiety, containing it until the con was over and it was safe to worry again.

Their crew was made up of some of the most capable thieves in the world. Chris should have caused him just as little worry, if not even less, than their mark himself did.

Now if only Yuuri could convince his brain of that fact.

 

—

 

It wasn’t long before the five judges were escorted to the judges’ table, their stations separated by cardboard dividers similar to the ones used to cast a vote.There was a laptop waiting for him, but Phichit knew it had already been all but gutted, its nonessential programs and functions shut off so that all it was capable of doing was recording and reporting figure skating scores.

Or at least that’s what _most_ people would be limited to using this for. Luckily, he was Phichit Chulanont.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thumb drive, one that stood out only about a centimeter from the body of the computer. There wasn’t much space on it, but it was more than enough for the program he’d written that would enable him to piggyback into the building’s network. “Otabek,” he said softly as the folder opened, lines of code unspooling across his screen, “we patched yet?”

“Just found the breakers,” the hitter told him. In his maintenance uniform, he’d been able to access just about any part of the building without being questioned, and he was currently in a utility closet in the backstage area, beside an electrical control panel. To him it looked like a bunch of wires all tangled together over a set of switches, something he had no prayer of figuring out himself in the next several minutes.

So he took a photo with his phone, sending the image to Phichit. Otabek made a grunt in the back of his throat once it had gone through. “Which, uh… which ones you need me to tap?” he asked, fishing the cable back out of his pocket.

Phichit studied the photograph closely.

“The seventh one on the left side,” he decided, “and then the second and ninth on the right.” While Otabek had come a long way in his technical knowledge since meeting Phichit, it was far beyond his pay grade to know what wires showed the security feed and monitored the sensors in the vault’s anteroom. It was not, of course, beyond Phichit’s.

“Done,” Otabek announced after a moment, clipping three of the four prongs to the wires Phichit had specified. The fourth plugged into a tiny router, something of Phichit’s own design, that connected directly to the similarly homemade device Phichit had plugged into his lobotomized computer. With a few quick keystrokes, Phichit was hooked into the building’s electrical network, able to see and manipulate the settings of the various sensors Yuri had to circumvent.

“Should be good to go, Baby Yuri,” he said under his breath, so his fellow judges might not overhear. “I’ve got the security cameras and the vibration sensors in the vault. Lasers are on a different circuit, so it’ll take me a bit more time to deal with those, but…”

 

—

 

“Don’t worry,” Yuri breathed as he crawled on his stomach through the ventilation shaft. The air blowing through the vents was cooler than he was used to, but he appreciated it, as it would give his body a chance to acclimate to the colder temperatures of the vault. “Focus on getting the heat sensors. I’m almost in position.”

He reached the grate in the vent floor, and with his fingertips, he carefully, silently, pried it loose, peering down into the hallway in the sub-basement. “I’m clear,” he breathed, so softly only those listening on his earbud could hear him. The vent was narrow, and he had to shimmy his shoulders in order to fit through it, but Yuri hadn’t suffered through fifteen years of ballet training and eight years of gymnastics for his flexibility to fail him now. With a twist, dangling from the ceiling vent by his fingertips, Yuri was in front of the door he needed to unlock, landing silently on his feet.

“First keypad,” he heard Victor say, reciting the intel they’d gathered earlier. “Digits 3-4-8-0, first digit 4, last digit 0.”

“Got it.” 4-8-3-0? It was right on his first try, and Yuri all but skipped through the door, pulling it shut tight behind him.

“They don’t see a thing,” Phichit said with a grin, studying the images from the security cameras that were at the bottom of his monitor. He’d looped the footage so that the security guards would be unable to see Yuri’s movements. “Do your thing, Baby.”

“If you must call me _anything_ ,” Yuri hissed, still standing carefully in the doorway of the vault’s antechamber, “call me ‘Yurio’.” Then he made a face at being forced to endorse his own hated nickname.

He fished in his pocket for his pack of gum, popping out several pieces and shoving them into his mouth, chewing quickly. With his other hand, he took out the long piece of foil and the baggie of slushy ice that Otabek had scraped off the bottom of the ice resurfacer for him. It wouldn’t stay frozen for long, but all it needed to do was buy him a bit of time…

Working quickly, Yuri rolled the tinfoil into a fat cone shape, scooping the better part of the slush inside. He fished the wad of gum out of his mouth, sticking it carefully to the edge of the foil, and stuck the whole makeshift snow-cone directly to the heat sensor.

“Smart,” Phichit said, impressed. He could see the readout of the heat sensor on his screen, which had just dropped from 55 degrees to slightly above freezing. “Your body heat won’t be able to get through.”

“Told you I could handle it,” Yuri said, unable to keep from preening a little. With the sensors masked, he finally turned his attention to the expanse of floor in front of him, burning blue lasers criss-crossing at various heights.

“I’ll give you about four minutes until the ice melts,” Phichit told him, tapping a few keys as he entered a score for the six-year-old on the ice. “Otabek and I can keep the guards back after that, but…”

Yuri was already cinching his jacket tighter, tying his hair into a bun so nothing loose would accidentally disrupt the beams.

“I’ll do it in two.”

 

\--

 

Victor still sat in the middle of the arena, among the crowd, pretending to be engrossed by the skating, but in reality closely monitoring his team’s movements. Phichit was the only one of his friends he could see, shrouded in shadow at the judges’ table, but he trusted them all to be in position, carrying out the plan he’d made.

Just as they trusted him to do his part, no matter what got in the way.

And speaking of getting in the way…

Makkachin perked up beside him as someone slid into the seat beside him, and Victor knew his mark had finally taken the bait.

“Maybe you can help me understand something, Victor,” Chris said with a sigh, reaching down to pet Makkachin.

Makkachin let himself be petted, tail wagging fiercely. Victor frowned out at the ice, trying to figure out what to say.

“Well,” he said. “The skater has to do a thing, and try not to fall.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the rink.

“You’re doing it again,” Chris snapped, making Victor look in his direction. “Don’t think you can keep playing dumb with me. I’m _talking_ about why you left ISU.”

Of all the topics he’d thought Chris might want to cover today, that had certainly been one of them. It was Chris’s anger that he wasn’t exactly prepared for.

He turned, looking Chris in the eyes. “What do you want me to say, Chris?” he said, clapping absentmindedly as the girl on the ice finished her routine. “I was a mess last year.”

“A mess,” Chris repeated. “And now, you’re a thief.”

Victor looked away with a sigh.

There were two problems with Chris. One was that he was too clever to be put over by any lie, at least for long. The second was that he knew Victor far, far too well. Or at least, he _thought_ he did.

“I’d have thought you’d be happy,” Victor told Chris, tilting his head lazily in his friend’s direction. “Less competition for the most glamorous cases. For promotions.”

“You would have thought I’d be _happy_ ,” Chris repeated, incredulously, “that my best friend now heads up one of the world’s most notorious criminal enterprises?”

Victor laughed at that. It made Chris’s expression twist into something disturbed, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t picture anyone on his team as inspiring much fear in anyone, much less making the list of “most notorious gangs in the world”. Even Otabek, who was objectively frightening when fully in action, was so soft around Makkachin and the hamsters that it was difficult for Victor to imagine being afraid of him.

Then again, they didn’t exactly publicize that they committed crimes in the name of people who needed their help. Having a fearsome, untouchable public image did have its uses.

“Victor,” Chris said, shifting in his seat, “you have no idea how much you have to answer for.”

He had _some_ idea. “We all have terrible things to answer for, Chris,” he said blithely, holding eye contact. “Not just the criminals among us.”

One of them broke the law in the name of helping those with no other recourse. One of them worked for an immoral corporation who protected its bottom line more than human lives. The thieves Victor lived and worked with now, the people he entrusted his life with, were far more honorable than any of the people he’d ever worked with at ISU, Chris notwithstanding. Victor understood far too well that just because something was _legal_ didn’t mean it was _right_.

But judging from the way Chris’s eyes narrowed at Victor’s words, it was clear he would never agree.

 

\--

 

There was a kind of special thrill, Yuri thought as he leaned into a graceful backbend, in getting past a web of lasers.

He didn’t think these ones were deadly (not that he hadn’t dealt with those before) but touching any one of them would be enough for the alarms to go off and for the guards to come running. And dammit, Yuri was too professional to let that happen.

Yuri balanced on his hands, pivoting in place to gracefully lower one foot to the ground, just over one beam, under another. Lilia had drilled him well, in childhood, to be hyperaware of his body and the way he shifted his weight as he moved from position to position. One of the most vital skills for a thief of their caliber.

Lilia was retired now, living in the Russian countryside with her dogs and jewels. Now Yuri, her successor, was the world’s greatest thief.

A back handspring, a one-handed roundoff. Curving his spine like an S to avoid one particularly tricky laser beam that was diagonal. Every move was deliberate, surgical, and Yuri felt oddly calm as he approached the other side. Circumventing lasers was a delicate dance, and Yuri Plisetsky was the world’s prima ballerina.

“Almost to the vault,” he breathed, and finally touched down on the other side of the lasers. “Chu, hit me with the codes.”

At the judges’ table, Phichit tapped his phone almost absentmindedly, pulling up the messages from the phone they’d cloned. “54,” he read, “49, 32, 11, 93.”

Yuri spun the dial delicately, his leather gloves not leaving a single print behind. He was a specter, a phantom. No vault in the world was safe from him, not with all the guards in the world between him and his goal.

He opened the vault door. It swung inward silently on its hinges, and Yuri was hit in the face with a blast of freezing air. He shivered once, violently, then pressed inside. His breath huffed out before him in white clouds.

“Quick,” Phichit said, chancing a look at his wristwatch. “Any more than 90 seconds and you’re in danger of contracting frostbite.”

“Don’t rush me,” Yuri said, softly, still full of that preternatural calm that only overtook him when he was inside a vault. He crossed the vault silently, aware that the vibration sensors were still activated, even if Phichit had fiddled with the system enough to make them less sensitive, if not fully deactivated.

Still, any loud noise, or a false step, ran the risk of triggering them.

He approached box 3Lz on graceful cat feet, walking as though he were gliding across a frozen pond. His lockpicks were out of his pocket and in the keyhole as soon as it was in front of him, moving slowly so as to not cause any unnecessary vibrations.

That satisfying _click_ sounded within seconds. Yuri grinned, popping the box’s door open.

But that grin quickly melted away.

Yuri’s eyes went wide as he took in the reality of what was inside the safe deposit box.

“We have a problem,” he murmured to his team.

 

—

 

“You’ve changed, Victor,” Chris all but spat, looking angry. “The Victor I know never would have abandoned his morals to assist a bunch of petty thieves. It’s like I don’t know who you are anymore.”

“That’s fair,” Victor said, offering a lazy grin in his direction. The extent to which Victor had changed in the last several years — because of his mother, because of Yuuri, because of the world seeming to go mad all around him — had been something he’d kept private, for the most part. Victor was, most definitely, no longer the man he had been when he’d worked for ISU. He liked to think he was a better man for having left.

But try telling that to Chris, who was still so convinced that justice and the law were one and the same.

“I know you’ve been having a hard time since your mother died,” he said quietly. “And you’re right. You _were_ a mess. But this isn’t the way to fix it.”

Victor, of course, did not agree. But before he could come up with a response for Chris, something dismissive and airheaded as was his favorite technique for deflecting, there was a click right in his ear.

He looked at Chris in surprise. His former best friend was remorseful, frowning at Victor.

“I’m sorry, old friend,” he said. “You haven’t given me much of a choice.”

Victor blinked, then looked down at his right wrist.

A silver handcuff was locked around it. Victor’s eyes tracked the chain, as if in slow motion, to see that the other cuff was hooked tightly around Chris’s left.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t expected this possibility when Chris had shown up. But the reality of it, the fact that he was restrained, now fully unable to get away from Chris, still sent a shock through his system.

He looked up, slowly.

“You…” He swallowed, pulling his arm away fruitlessly, too late. Chris’s arm went with it, swaying limply as Victor continued to tug. “If you wanted to tie me up,” Victor said, breathy, trying to make it a joke, “all you had to do was… was ask.”

“I won’t even dignify that with a response,” Chris said, shaking his head. “I told you, Victor. ISU sent me here to look after one of its most key assets.”

His meaning finally sunk in, fully.

“ _I’m_ the asset?” Victor breathed. “You’re here to… to bring me in?”

Chris confirmed it with a slight nod.

“You were one of our best, Victor,” he said. “You could be again, if you were around the right people.”

“I… no, Chris. I…”

“Yakov has watched you destroy yourself for too long, Victor.” Chris looked genuinely sad. “And so have I.”

“No!”

The protest came not from him, but from his earpiece. An involuntary gasp torn from Yuuri’s mouth. It killed Victor not to be able to say anything, to reassure him or the rest of the team, but he kept his mouth shut. He had to, in order to not clue Chris into the fact that they were here.

“You don’t actually have the authority to arrest me,” he said. He was proud that his voice didn’t shake at all. “Cuffing me… bit unnecessary, don’t you think?”

“Well, that’s the thing, Victor,” Chris said, getting to his feet and pulling Victor along with him. “Either you renounce your life of crime, and turn in your accomplices, today? Or I’ll call someone who _can_ arrest you. They’ll take the evidence of whatever it is you’re planning here and send you somewhere where they can cure you of your newfound kleptomania.”

 _Prison._  Chris might not have been a police officer, but his working relationship with the police meant that any thieves he caught practically had a fasttrack to a supermax prison. 

“You’re making a mistake,” Victor tried to protest as Chris manhandled them down the row of seats.

“Oh, my friend,” Chris said, frog-marching Victor down the aisle to the nearest exit. “You’ve made more than enough mistakes for both of us, I think.”

 

—

 

The safe deposit box was empty.

Phichit had told him to expect anything from the size of a thumb drive to a computer’s hard drive inside the safe deposit box he’d just opened. But as Yuri looked again, blinking hard to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, he found… nothing.

“We have a _problem_ ,” he repeated, still whispering over comms. The frosty air of the vault was nipping at his nose, his cheeks, and he could already feel them burning with the cold.

“Yura?” In the shock of what was happening to Victor at that same moment, halfway across the arena, Otabek was the first to realize something was wrong with Yuri, too. “What’s happening?”

“It’s gone,” Yuri said numbly. “The- there’s no drive in here, it’s completely empty…”

He ran his hands along the inside of the box just in case he’d missed anything, and that was when he found it.

A playing card.

Not just any playing card.

The king of hearts.

“Oh, fuck,” he breathed. "Fucking shit."

“What?” Yuuri snapped. “Talk to us, Yurio. What’s going on?”

Yuri opened his mouth to explain, but he was interrupted by a loud voice behind him before he could.

“Well, if it isn’t little Yuri!”

Yuri pivoted, as if in slow motion, on the spot. There was a figure in the vault doorway, smirking victoriously at him.

Of course it would be him, today of all days. Of fucking _course_.

“ _JJ,_ ” Yuri spat, soaking the letters with as much venom as he could manage. “I thought you were still in jail. I guess I was wrong.”

Jean-Jacques Leroy. For Yuri’s entire career, the man had dogged his footsteps, always trying to race him to the next score. JJ was one of the few thieves in the entire world whose skills could even try to compare to Yuri’s.

Of course, he was also a complete and total _jackass_.

JJ grinned at Yuri, leaning almost casually against the vault doorway.

“Yuri,” he greeted, still smirking at him. “I heard you’re still just a liiiiittle too slow. Guess I was _right_.” Yuri snarled, ready to take a step in his direction, but JJ reached into his pocket, pulling out a pistol and leveling it at Yuri’s chest. “Ah, ah, ah. That temper of yours.” He tutted. “Still needs a bit of work, eh?”

Yuri froze in place, still shuddering from a combination of rage and cold.

“H-how?” he managed.

“Been undercover here about a month,” JJ said casually. “Plenty of time to case the place. It’s a little too easy to get on security staff around here, you know that? It’d be worthy of concern if it didn’t make my life a whole lot easier.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Victor’s channel on comms; but of course, he said nothing thanks to Chris being all but on top of him. Yuri was too preoccupied to demand an explanation from Victor.

“Okay,” he said, holding up his hands to placate JJ. “You got here first. Good for you. There’s enough here for both of us, if you want to…”

“Nice try,” JJ laughed, fishing in his other pocket with his free hand. “You think I don’t know about your Robin Hood moonlighting, kid? I know you’re only interested in this.” He held up a black external hard drive, about the size of a paperback book, and Yuri’s eyes went wide. “Yeah. You have any idea how much this’ll go for on the black market? And you were just going to _give it away?_ ”

“You fucking prick!” Yuri snapped. Every fiber in his body wanted to lunge for the drive, to snatch it out of JJ’s hands, but he was frozen by the gun trained on him. “Why don't you throw away that peashooter, take me on in a fair fight?”

“Nah,” JJ said. He almost sounded bored. “But you want to know something, little Yuri? You really saved my ass by coming in here. See, I was a little… sloppy, when I came into the vault. There’s a record of a break-in already in the system. So!” He laughed, slipping the drive back into a pocket. “Just my luck that someone _else_ tried to rob the vault on the same day!”

He started to back out the door, and heedless of the danger, Yuri tried to follow him, JJ’s plan now painfully clear.

“You asshole!” he said, now shivering so violently that he could barely get the words out.

“Don’t take it personally, Yuri,” JJ said with a grin, holding onto the vault’s round handle. “It’s just—“

“—Don’t you _fucking say it_ —“

“—JJ style!”

The vault door swung shut with a massive thud, deep and final. The sound reverberated around the vault, seeming to rattle Yuri’s very bones.

And then the vibration sensor went off.

Alarms began blaring overhead, a red emergency light in the corner suddenly Yuri’s only source of light. And Yuri’s only exit had just been locked from the outside.

There was nowhere for him to run. Nowhere to hide.

“ _Fuck_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Hey fam, I heard you like cliffhangers, so I put a cliffhanger in your cliffhanger so you can cliffhang while you cliffhang. /10yearoldmeme
> 
> \- Ayu (the hamster Phichit is babytalking near the beginning of the chapter) is Otabek's hamster. His name is Kazakh for "bear". I'm creative. (and someday I want to write a hamsterfic. rip me.)
> 
> \- If you’re wondering how they got Otabek’s cable past the metal detector, it was coiled around the other skate in Yuri’s bag. The rest of that scene is all Hollywood hacking and I apologize for all the inaccuracies/non-science going on. 
> 
> \- This fic in general is actually REALLY poorly researched, especially per my usual standards. I'd really appreciate anything glaring being pointed out to me but otherwise, can't we just like, have fun for an hour?
> 
> \- Kudos to the handful of you who caught JJ and Victor crossing paths in the last chapter! I tried to keep it relatively subtle, but Victor definitely had an “oh fuuuuuck” moment in this chapter once he realized he’d seen JJ and failed to recognize him or account for his presence. Good work, criminal mastermind! :P
> 
> \- My allusions to who Jackson is inspired by are getting LESS SUBTLE. I regret absolutely nothing. 
> 
> \- I don’t think I’ve said much about the aliases the team is using! “Evan Carroll” is taken from Evan Lysacek and his coach, Frank Carroll. Victor’s last name, “Slavonich,” is a nod to Yuuri’s free skate from LittleLostStar’s fic [“Setting Sun,”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9141265/chapters/20769238) which is absolutely fantastic and #goals. (Even though I misspelled the name every single time when I first posted last chapter. FAIL.) “Baranovsky” is the male form of Lilia’s last name Baranovskaya, and “Tom Dubois” is a nod to Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire; “Tom” is Tennessee Williams’s real first name. You can, uh, blame Phichit for that one. In-universe he’s the one making up all the aliases. 
> 
> So, so, SO much love to [katsukiyuuristrophyhusband](http://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot#_=_), [miraculouskatsukii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraculouskatsukii/pseuds/miraculouskatsukii), [defiantdreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefiantDreams/pseuds/DefiantDreams), [thishasbeencary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thishasbeencary/pseuds/thishasbeencary), and everyone else on the VWC discord who has ever listened to me cry about this fic/'verse or helped me work out tricky plot points or characterization. This fic would be nothing without you. <3 PS, go read their fics, because they are incredible. 
> 
> There will be between 1-2 more chapters of this fic! My outline right now has one very, very long chapter that I expect I'll be splitting up by the time writing is further underway. 
> 
> Yelling at me at [phoenixrei](https://phoenixrei.tumblr.com) on Tumblr won't make me write faster, but talking thieves with me probably will! :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Otabek has fun with explosives. Chris and Victor spend some quality time together. Isabella sells mozzarella sticks. Yuuri finally skates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE thanks to [Spooky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/pseuds/spookyfoot) for being this chapter's first reader and pointing out all the places I flat-out forgot to say stuff. She's got a Hannah Montana AU and a fic where Victor and Yuuri take a train to Worlds together, among many other quality fics -- check them out! ♥
> 
> And now, without further ado, we pick up where we left off, with Yurio trapped in the freezing vault...

“ _Fuck_.”

Yuri looked frantically around the vault, hoping against experience that there was some escape route he’d somehow missed when poring over the schematics of the sub-basement. Some small, unmarked vent, or some kind of weak spot he might be able to kick his way through. But he already knew it was no good. The vault was a dead end by design, the better to trap thieves like him inside.

The one small bright spot was that he probably wouldn’t freeze to death in here, with the alarm sounding. No, he’d just get caught by the guards, who would run his prints and find he was wanted in nine different countries for grand larceny. They’d have their pick of which country to extradite him to.

 _God_ , he hoped they didn’t send him to France.

“Yuri!” The other Yuuri’s voice was sharp over comms. “What happened with JJ?”

“I-I’m locked in,” he stammered, remembering himself, remembering the team that was with him even now. “Guards are on their way.” Was it his imagination, or could he already hear voices in the antechamber?

A sharp intake of breath from Phichit’s channel, muffled swearing from the other Yuuri. But it was Victor’s voice, incredibly, that he heard first.

“Otabek.” Victor was talking incredibly quietly, almost through his teeth. Presumably so Giacometti couldn’t overhear him. “We’re running the San Andreas Fault. You got it?”

“Already in place,” Otabek said. “Victor…”

“You call the play. And take care of them for me.”

“What the fuck does _that_ mean?” Yuri demanded, starting to back against the wall, hoping if he made himself small enough, maybe he could escape notice for a few precious seconds.

“Yura,” Otabek demanded, rather than answer his question, “do you trust me?”

And there was only one thing he could say to that.

 

—

 

Chris had been halfway to the exit with Victor in tow when a crush of security guards drew his attention.

“Security breach!” he heard one of them say as he ran for the stairwell, reaching for the walkie-talkie on his shoulder. “All non-critical units to the basement, now!”

Chris looked at Victor, whose face was unreadable. “Something you’d like to tell me, Victor?”

“Chris,” Victor said, shrugging. The handcuffs around his wrist clinked as he moved. “Does this really sound like something I’d do?” Makkachin panted up at Chris with a big doggie smile, as though to complete the picture of innocence.

“What,” Chris said, moving where the guards had been heading, yanking Victor along with him. “Breaking into a secure storage facility?”

“No,” Victor said with a sniff. “Getting caught.” Chris was struck by the arrogance of it. Victor being full of himself was no surprise — it had been one of the man’s few flaws when they’d worked together — but bragging about committing larceny? What had his friend become?

Victor was all but dragging his feet, holding his arm out sullenly in front of him as they clambered down the stairs. As they got closer to the sub-basement, Chris could hear alarms sounding.

“Victor, I’m on your side,” he pled. “Police are already on their way, thanks to this break-in. If you don’t help me, I won’t be able to protect you.”

“…for me,” he heard Victor mutter under his breath. Chris squinted at him in surprise.

“What?”

“I don’t need you looking out for me,” Victor repeated, sounding annoyed. Chris rolled his eyes.

“Obviously you do.”

They wound through the halls, following the sound of the commotion, until arriving at a thick steel door that resembled a bank vault. Guards were waiting in formation around it, pointing their guns at it in a truly pointless display of force. The head of security was huffing, hands resting on his knees as he fumbled for some kind of mobile device.

“Mr. Spencer,” Chris said, observing the scene with detached amusement. “Is this how your crack team usually reacts to break-ins?”

The head of security — Spencer — looked up at him, sweat beaded on his forehead.

“M-Mr. Giacometti,” he panted, mopping his brow. “Apologies… I came here… fast as I could…”

Chris was aware of Victor surveying the scene, something that immediately put him on edge. Victor was a friend, but going up against that mind of his was truly formidable.

“Victor,” he said sweetly, drawing his friend’s attention. “What sort of thief do you think we might have caught in our trap?”

“Clearly one without an exit strategy,” Victor said, equally mild-mannered.

It was at that moment that Makkachin started to bark, almost frantically, at the sealed vault door. A couple of the guards recoiled in surprise, lowering their weapons.

“Makka!” Victor cried, kneeling down to the dog’s eye level. Chris was forced to follow him by virtue of the cuffs on their wrists. “What is it, Makka-makka-chin? You smell a thief? Huh? You smell a thief?” Makkachin yapped again, pawing insistently at the ground. “Ohhh, good boy, Makkachin! Show us the bad thief, Makka! Go get him!”

Chris was about to make a biting comment about that little act, but held his tongue, aware of the mixed company they were in. Spencer and his lieutenants might not be particularly bright — none of them, for instance, had yet called attention to the fact that he and Victor were handcuffed together — but they weren’t liable to let Chris outing Victor as one of the world’s greatest thieves slide.

No, that was something he had better keep to himself for now, just in case Victor decided to take his deal after all. No need to complicate his return to polite society.

“Mr. Giacometti?” Spencer sounded confused. “Who is this?”

He exchanged a brief look with Victor.

“This is my partner,” Chris said, getting back to his feet and subtly yanking Victor up with him. “Right, Victor?”

“Yup!” Victor heartily agreed, lacing his fingers with Chris’s and resting his free hand flirtatiously on his chest. “He’s just a mess without me!” He winked at Spencer, and Chris felt his expression freeze in place. He’d meant that Victor was his co-investigator, but leave it to the man to purposely misinterpret it just to throw him off. It was a tactic Chris was familiar with, though it usually wasn’t leveled at him.

“Just open the vault,” Chris snapped, waving impatiently at Spencer. “This is your last chance,” he hissed to Victor while Spencer’s back was turned. “If whatever’s in there incriminates you…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Victor murmured back, eyes wide.

Spencer finished entering the combination, cranking the door open. Chris found himself dreading what they might find inside.

A blast of arctic air hit him in the face as the vault door swung open. The alarm was still blaring, and the light was dim, but there was no mistaking what they were seeing.

“It’s empty,” Spencer said dumbly, taking a few stunned steps inside. “There’s… there’s no one in here.”

“What?” snapped one of the other guards, a tanned man with a guard’s cap pulled low over his eyes. Victor stiffened at the sight of the man; but by the time Chris had turned to ask his friend what was the matter, it was as though the moment had never happened. “How is that possible?”

 

\--

 

_“Yura,” Otabek had said, “do you trust me?”_

_“Of course,” Yuri had replied, almost annoyed. “What kind of fucking…”_

_“Clean out the safe deposit boxes around 3Lz. All of them.”_

_Yuri had continued swearing under his breath, but he’d done as Otabek had asked. Now that the alarm was already going off, there was no reason to be careful, and each box was cracked in a matter of seconds. Most of them were empty, but there was a lumpy package inside one that he’d grabbed without looking at it, shoving it inside his coat._

_“Good. Now open locker 4A and get inside.”_

_There was a sound of barking from just outside the vault — Yuri couldn’t be sure if it was Makkachin or some kind of thief-sniffing dog the guards already had on the premises. He hadn’t really wanted to stick around to find out._

_“Beka,” he’d grunted as he quickly picked the lock, opening the door and climbing inside the large locker, shutting the door behind him, “if I don’t make it out of here…”_

_“Shh.” There had been some chatter from Victor’s channel, Victor making some kind of baby talk babble as Makkachin continued to bark, but it barely registered to Yuri. “Keep your arms in, Yura.”_

_He’d done as Otabek had asked, heart pounding as he hugged his arms in close to his body._

_And then the floor gave way beneath him._

_Yuri barely had time to register that he was falling, his stomach plummeting to the center of the earth, before he wasn’t falling any more, his body cradled securely in a strong pair of arms. He opened his eyes tentatively, crumbled concrete and dust still showering him, and found himself looking into a pair of slate grey eyes._

_“Beka!”_

_Otabek looked none too pleased with himself, holding Yuri in a princess carry as dust continued to rain down around them. “Yura,” he said simply._

_In a burst of gratitude, Yuri wrapped his arms around Otabek’s neck, overwhelmed with relief. Then he hurriedly scrambled out of his teammate’s arms, feet landing on the floor as he shoved Otabek back a step._

_“Come on, Beka,” he scoffed. “Don’t get emotional on me now.”_

_“You’re welcome,” Otabek said placidly, brushing some bits of concrete off the top of Yuri’s head. Yuri batted his hand away._

_“How’d you do that, anyway?” He looked at the hole in the ceiling he’d just fallen through. It was almost perfectly square, the precise size of the locker he’d stuffed himself into._

_Otabek fished in the pocket of his coveralls, pulling out some bits of something that looked like cable for Yuri’s inspection. He recognized it instantly, eyebrows rising._

_“Detonating cord,” he said, and Otabek nodded in confirmation. It was the kind of thing used in demolitions — or, when Yuri used it, for blowing holes through walls or floors when breaking in somewhere discretion wasn’t of the essence. “Looks like… mine?“_

_“Found it in our van.” He put it back into his pocket. “I wanted to be sure you had an exit.”_

_Yuri looked around, taking in their surroundings. It was lit with dim fluorescents, compact cars and SUVs parked in neat rows. They were standing in a parking space that had been blocked off with a traffic cone, large shuttle buses parked on either side of them._

_“The garage under the arena,” he realized, and Otabek nodded again. Yuri had briefly considered tunneling in from here, but had ruled that out thanks to the vibration sensors. “I told you it was a shitty way in.”_

_“But it’s a great way out,” Otabek pointed out, and Yuri conceded the point._

_“Anyway,” he said, feeling embarrassed, “thanks. For… for helping me.” It was like he’d said earlier: whenever things got hairy, Otabek was the one who was supposed to help him get out of it. Yuri just… never liked being put in a position to need his help in the first place._

_“We’re a team.” Otabek offered a smile. “It’s what we do.”_

_Yuri opened his mouth to say something else, but he was interrupted by a voice over comms._

_“Gang.” It was the other Yuuri. “Meet me in the men’s room on the south end. Now.”_

_There were voices overhead — the guards roaming the vault, shouting in dismay that there was no thief to be caught. Yuri and Otabek exchanged a look, and started to jog toward the stairwell, putting as much distance between themselves and the vault as possible._

 

—

 

Everything was blowing up in JJ’s face today.

First his screw-up while breaking into the vault, a rare instance of nerves getting the better of him. Then Yuri Plisetsky had shown up and he’d all but gift-wrapped the punk for Spencer; yet somehow, improbably, he’d escaped, and undoubtedly wanted revenge.

This job was supposed to be simple. What else could possibly go wrong?

“Plisetsky’s here?” Isabella asked him at the concessions stand, which sold, among other things, hot pretzels, slushies, and stale chips with questionable cheese that the menu dubbed “nachos”. Working here had been her cover, the way JJ’s post as a security guard had been his. The rest of their team, a trio of highly-trained mercenaries, had been undercover as local hockey players for the duration of this job, remaining on hand in case JJ or Isabella needed backup.

“Any sign of the others?”

“Saw Nikiforov twice,” JJ said, taking off his guard’s cap and ruffling his hair. “Didn’t recognize me either time, I’m pretty sure. Neither did Giacometti just now.”

Isabella snorted. “Their mistake.” Her expression changed. “JJ, if Nikiforov’s here, that means…”

“I know,” JJ said, looking over his shoulder as though expecting to find the man in question standing behind him. _Yuuri Katsuki_. It hadn’t been the name he’d used in Barcelona a few years back, when their paths had first crossed, but these days it was the only name anyone in their circle used to refer to the notorious con artist. 

God, Barcelona. Katsuki still owed JJ for that disaster.

“JJ,” Isabella said sharply, and he looked at her. “Don’t let Katsuki get in your head again. We have what we came for. We should round up the muscle and get out, now.”

“Yeah,” JJ said, looking around. He could swear he saw a familiar dark head duck into the nearby men’s room. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“Right,” Isabella said, slipping the hard drive out of JJ’s jacket pocket and tucking it into a silver Halliburton briefcase she’d kept hidden under the counter, beneath the ketchup packets and extra straws. “You take this, I’ll meet you—“

“Excuse me!” There was a rapping of knuckles on the stainless steel countertop of the concessions stand, and both of them turned at the disturbance. “Can I get an order of mozzarella sticks?” asked a preteen girl with a blue streak in her hair.

Isabella looked back at JJ, then waved him off. “Go,” she murmured, shoving the briefcase at him. “I’ll brush her off, then clear out and meet you.” She turned, snatching a paper boat of greasy mozzarella sticks out from under the heat lamp. “Three-fifty, kid,” she said to the girl who’d made the request.

The girl’s brow furrowed. “Nuh-uh!” she insisted, pulling out her smartphone. “What about the special promotion?”

“The _what_?”

The girl whipped around. “They’re trying to rip us off!” she announced loudly to, Isabella noted with horror, a large crowd that had gathered behind her. They made angry noises, pressing closer to the booth, waving their phones in her face.

Even as an unofficial employee of this ice arena, Isabella was, for the time being, stuck.

“Get out with the briefcase,” she hissed tensely to JJ, scrambling to deal with the chaos that was unfolding. “I’ll meet you as soon as I can.”

“I’m not going without you!” JJ protested.

“I’ll be fine,” Isabella said impatiently, all but pushing him out the employees-only door. “Get that to the client so we can actually get paid for this mess.” She gave him an extra shove. “And don’t waste time looking for Katsuki!”

But as the door swung shut behind him, JJ already knew he was going to disobey both her requests.

A king did not abandon his subjects. Nor did he ever forget a slight.

 

\--

 

Yuuri and Phichit were already in the bathroom when Otabek and Yuri arrived, both of them brushing right past the “out of order” sign Phichit had taped to the door. Yuri hurried to lock the door behind himself while Otabek prowled the row of stalls, shoving in the doors to make sure each was unoccupied.

“Right, I’ve sent out a blast on FellaLikeHella’s Twitter that there are free mozzarella sticks at concessions for the next half hour,” Phichit said, still tapping away on his smartphone. He was allowed a brief reprieve from his role as judge since the ice resurfacer was redoing the rink for the senior division. “That should buy us some time.”

Otabek fished in one of his coverall’s pockets, pulling out a small metal tube that still had wires dangling from the end of it. “Yanked out JJ’s spark plugs. Ought to at least slow him down while he looks for a new ride.”

“What the hell is Victor thinking?” Yuri demanded, turning to Yuuri as though he could provide an explanation. “I’ve _literally_ seen him talk two mooks into beating each other up before. And he’s not even going to _try_ lying to Chris so his ass doesn’t get dragged to jaill?”

“I can take Chris,” Otabek insisted, making a direct appeal to Yuuri. “You saw him in Taipei, he’s useless in a fight. If I can get close enough to cut Victor loose…”

“You think he won’t see you coming a mile away?” Yurio scoffed. “Even _Victor_ couldn’t outsmart him. Not in Taipei, and definitely not here.”

“Forget about Chris for a minute,” Phichit said, waving them away. “What are we going to do about JJ?”

“ _JJ,_ ” Yuri spat as though it were the filthiest curse word. “What’s he even _doing_ here?”

“Theft?” Phichit said, shrugging helplessly. “Does it even matter why he’s here? He got to the drive before us. If we’re going to get that data back for our client, we’ve got to find some way to get it back.”

“Cut off his arms, then,” Yuri snarled. “And his head.”

The other three gaped at him, stunned into silence.

“Damn, Baby Yuri,” Phichit said. He looked more than a little disturbed.

“I want to kill him,” Yuri insisted, looking around at the other three. “We can do that, right?”

“Yeah,” Otabek said with a shrug, and Yuuri glared at him. “I mean,” he added, fidgeting under his gaze, “I… I could.”

“No one is killing JJ,” Yuuri said. It was the first time he’d spoken since they’d congregated, and the others looked to him. “And no one’s beating up Chris.”

“Yuuri,” Phichit murmured, taking a step closer. “Are you okay? With Victor, I mean…”

Yuuri looked Phichit in the eyes. His expression was calm, his eyes clear.

“I’m fine, Phichit,” he said. He hesitated for a moment. “Victor… Victor told me he was planning this.”

There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then…

“Is he _fucking insane?”_ Yurio demanded. Phichit pressed a palm to his forehead, muttering angrily to himself, while Otabek rolled his eyes heavenward, as though praying for deliverance from whatever far-fetched plot Victor had cooked up this time.

“Listen,” Yuuri said, and the tone in his voice made them all pay attention. “Chris was a variable we couldn’t account for. Not unless one of us was watching him the whole time. So Victor set himself up out in the open and… waited for Chris to show.” He shrugged a little helplessly. “Handcuffs weren’t part of that equation, but… details, I guess.”

“Why didn’t he tell _us_?” Yurio demanded.

“Because he still doesn’t trust us.” Yuuri was surprised by the venom coming from Phichit.

“Phichit…”

“Even with everything we’ve done for him,” Phichit went on, glaring at Yuuri, “he still just sees us as rotten criminals. Doesn’t he?” He looked at the other two as though hoping for backup. Yurio looked unsure, while Otabek looked away with a scowl, gripping an elbow close to his body. Neither of them said anything.

“It’s not an issue of trust,” Yuuri said, even though he couldn’t be sure. _He_ felt secure with Victor, loved and trusted by him; but Yurio, Otabek, and Phichit didn’t have his history with Victor. They’d been asked by outsiders to work with him, to put their lives in his hands. And with Victor being, well, Victor, impulsive and dramatic and sometimes a _little_ careless in his plans, was it any wonder they might still question his faith in them?

Yuuri looked at the three of them, helpless.

“He only told me,” he said to them, “because I’m too weak to handle the job otherwise. He… he didn’t want me to lose hope when Chris kidnapped him. But he knew you three could handle it.”

The other three looked entirely unconvinced, still refusing to meet his eyes.

“Phichit,” Yuuri pled, looking around the circle at each of them in turn. “Otabek. Yura. Victor trusts us to be able to pull this off without him. We can’t let him down now.”

It might not be enough to satisfy them forever, but for the time being, it would have to be enough.

Yurio was the first to break the silence, giving a derisive snort.

“Well, he didn’t account for _JJ_ being here,” Yuri grunted. “Oi, Victor, you hear that?” he said, addressing their missing leader over comms. “If you’d just let me break into the vault a week ago like I said we should, none of this would be happening now!”

“Leave him alone,” Yuuri said sternly, in the absence of Victor being able to respond to Yurio’s taunts. “It doesn’t matter now. We’re here, and so’s JJ, and so’s Chris, and we have to be able to deal with it.”

“While still ripping off Jackson,” Phichit said.

“And making sure Victor doesn’t get himself sent to Turkish prison,” Yuri said with a frown.

They all processed their situation for a moment.

“Fuck,” Otabek concluded, eloquently.

“It’ll be fine,” Yuuri said, looking each of them in the eye. “We’re going to get the drive back from JJ, and we’re going to get Victor back from Chris.”

They waited for more, but Yuuri stayed silent.

“ _How_?” Yurio demanded.

“That’s all I got!” Yuuri replied, throwing his hands up helplessly. “Help me figure out the rest.”

They took a few more minutes to flesh out what needed to be done, and while Phichit and Yurio started debating whether the game they were running ought to be called the Bonaly Gambit or the Weir Turnabout, Yuuri pressed his lips to the cold gold of his ring, exhaling slowly as he thought about Victor.

 _Victor_ , he thought desperately, _I’m doing my best. You have to uphold your end of the deal, too._

 

—

 

“I’ve been thinking about that ring you wear.”

Victor didn’t respond to Chris right away, pressing his ring to his lip as he listened to his teammates plan over the comms that were still open. Thinking about Yuuri, his brave, beautiful Yuuri taking control in his absence.

“You don’t say,” he finally said, pulling his hand away from his mouth. He and Chris were both still in the vault, a guard left at the entrance to supervise them. Chris, as an active ISU investigator, plus Victor as his supposed “partner”, were being allowed to carry out their investigation, as ISU held the anti-theft policy for the entire arena. Scratchy blankets had been found in the guard station, draped over both their shoulders so they might be able to stay somewhat warm.

It seemed like a miracle that the security personnel _still_ hadn’t noticed, as of yet, that he and Chris were still handcuffed together. But then again, based on the simple fact that three of them were currently cooing over Makkachin in the hallway while exactly one guard was bothering to do his job, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising.

Chris was crouched by the open safe deposit boxes, examining them closely.

“I remember you coming back from Manila with it last year,” Chris murmured. He seemed lost in a memory. “You wouldn’t say where you got it, but you looked…”

He trailed off, looking at Victor’s ring, the way it gleamed even in the dim light of the vault. Victor flexed his fingers, self-conscious. When he and Yuuri had first gotten together, he’d never shared the identity of his new love with Chris, mostly demurring when the subject came up for fear of receiving the _why the fuck are you sleeping with the same man you’ve been tracking down for three years_ lecture. But after Yuuri had proposed, he hadn’t had the heart to take off his ring, or hide his newfound happiness.

No matter how short-lived it had felt at the time.

“Were you plotting this even then?” Chris demanded, and Victor met his eyes. “Taking ISU secrets and selling them to your little… thief friend?”

“I didn’t _sell_ him anything,” Victor snapped before he could stop himself. He needed to be better about keeping his emotions in check if he was going to successfully keep Chris off-balance. But Chris just shook his head sadly.

“Victor,” he said sympathetically. “I know that…” He paused for a moment. “Oh, what does he call himself these days? ‘Katsuki’?” Victor felt his expression freeze in place as Yuuri’s name left Chris’s lips. Goddamn him. Even after all this time, he knew exactly what buttons of Victor’s to push. “I know Katsuki does have a certain… charm. He’s got an ass that could make a grown man cry, and he’s _such_ a sweet-talker.”

Victor gave a short, empty laugh.

“Are you saying that I was, what, _seduced_ into my wicked ways, Chris?” he asked.

“You’re no fool, Victor,” Chris said, resting his unrestrained hand on his shoulder. “But… you were lonely. I know you were. Some pretty young thing comes along, offers you a little companionship in exchange for your soul…”

“My _soul_?” Victor asked, swatting Chris’s hand away from him. “Don’t talk to me about _selling your soul_ , Chris. Not when you’re still working for ISU.”

He glared at Chris, who looked stunned by his outburst.

“Victor,” Chris said. “I am _trying_ to understand. What is it about him that makes you so protective of him?”

“I love him,” Victor said fiercely. He refused to beat around the bush about this one irrefutable fact. “And he loves me. Yuuri did not _corrupt_ me, Chris. He _saved_ me.”

Victor’s words hung heavy in the air between them. Chris was the first to break the silence.

“Oh, _Victor_.” He sounded utterly heartbroken.

Victor looked away, hoping to find something that would distract Chris away from this topic.

“Look,” he said, kneeling briefly to scrape something off the floor. “Did you notice this playing card?” He held it up for Chris’s inspection.

“The king of hearts,” Chris murmured, taking it for himself. “Leroy’s trademark.”

JJ Leroy was probably the only modern thief who bothered leaving a calling card behind. It was, in Victor’s eyes, a bit unprofessional. What were they, comic book villains? Not to mention it practically begged police to trace any of his crimes back to him. Yurio’s methods tended to be immaculate, the occasional use of explosives notwithstanding.

The fact that Victor had come face to face with JJ, had had a conversation with him, before this job had gone down, and that he still hadn’t managed to recognize the man, let alone account for his meddling? Absolutely unacceptable on his part. But even though it would be easy for Victor to speak up about JJ’s presence on the guard roster, to let him take the fall for all their misdeeds at the arena, he kept his mouth shut. If JJ were arrested with the drive in his possession, they’d have no chance of getting it for themselves to give to their client.

Chris looked up from his inspection of the playing card. “Do you feel that?”

Victor did. They’d moved into an unmistakable warm spot in the vault — which was still a relative term — but it shouldn’t have been possible to feel outside air coming in, with the thick reinforced walls of the vault.

“It’s right here,” Chris murmured, moving to stand beside locker 4A and leaning in to examine the lock closely. “The lock’s been picked, just like the others.” He fished in his pocket for the master key that the head of security had lent him.

Chris swung the locker door open, and the source of the warmer air was immediately evident.

“Thief blew a hole in the floor and escaped,” Victor said, craning his neck to see the hole thathad been blown through the two-foot-thick concrete. “Huh. Not the most elegant solution, I’ll grant. But effective. Seems like JJ’s style.”

Chris leaned back on his heels.

“This was his way out?” he asked, as though to himself. He took a careful look at the space, at the hole in the floor.

“It must be what set off the motion sensors,” Victor offered, hoping to offer the obvious solution. “Leroy must’ve come in through the door, then blown a hole in the floor to escape.”

“This locker’s barely large enough for a child to fit inside,” Chris said, shaking his head as he continued to examine the space. “A grown man like Leroy could never fit inside. There are only a small handful of thieves that could have pulled off a job like this, and one of them…”

Victor felt that prickling at the back of his neck, the sensation that the noose was closing around it. Let it. So long as Yuuri and the others got away.

“Check CCTV,” Victor suggested. “See if Leroy shows up.”

“Oh, I’ll check the surveillance footage,” Chris said, eyes narrowing as he looked at Victor. “And I hope, for your sake, that I don’t find Yuri Plisetsky on there.”

 

\--

 

When Victor plotted out their cons, he usually allowed for several contingencies.

What to do if the mark got wise halfway through, for example, or how to handle it if a planned escape route ended up blocked. Yurio getting busted out of the vault had made use of such a contingency plan, a ploy that Victor had nicknamed the “San Andreas Fault” for ease of communication.

Another thief trying to rob the same location they were hitting was such a rare occurrence that it had only happened twice before in the year they’d all been working together. And both times before, Victor had been able to come up with a solution on the fly to get them all out of it.

They weren’t quite so lucky this time. With Victor incommunicado and not one, but _three_ marks breathing down their necks, Yuuri would be amazed if the plan he and the other three had slapped together in the bathroom would hold up.

But it had to.

By now, they’d all split up to take part in their various tasks. And of course, Yuuri wasn’t so lucky that he’d be able to pull off this con without ever setting foot on the ice in front of a crowd of skating fans, all expecting great things from “Evan Carroll”. He could do with disappointing the faceless crowd, of course; but Jackson would be among them. And if Jackson caught wise to the fact that Yuuri was a fraud before the trap had fully shut around him…

Yuuri’s hands were shaking on his skate’s laces as he cinched them tight, sitting on a bench in the locker room. He was in his costume, a black mesh and spandex thing that Otabek had sewn overnight. There were smatterings of large crystals on the shoulder and hip that Yurio swore weren’t _real_ uncut diamonds, though he admitted he couldn’t quite remember where he’d picked them up in the first place.

(“ _Maybe_ they’re from that old job in the Congo?” Yurio had mused, pulling the crystals from a crate he’d dug out of one of his old stashes, turning them this way and that as he examined them in the light. “Or maybe from that thing Lilia and I did on Murano in ’09?”

“If you can ever figure out how many millions of dollars I’m going to be casually wearing on my chest,” Yuuri had snapped, getting up from the ice after his fourth failed double axel, “let me know.”)

“Hey… Mr. Carroll?”

Yuuri looked up to see Lachlan Jackson standing in front of him, fidgeting.

“What?” Yuuri snapped, partly in-character as Evan, partly irritated that he was being drawn out of his own head.

The boy’s fingers hooked nervously in the athletic jacket he wore over his skating costume. “Do you ever get nervous?”

Yuuri was so taken aback that for a moment, he forgot to be in character. “What?” he repeated, less angrily.

“I…” The boy gulped. “I’ve never skated in front of so many people before.” He looked up, his chin thrusting out in order to portray confidence he clearly didn’t feel. “How do you deal with… with all the pressure?”

It was jaw-dropping that Lachlan was asking him for advice, after Yuuri had been nothing but cold to him. Then again, he thought with a slight pang, considering who Lachlan’s father was, perhaps he shouldn’t have been so surprised that Evan Carroll was the kind of person Lachlan Jackson tried to seek affection and approval from.

If Chris hadn’t been here, if JJ hadn’t been here, Yuuri might have poured more of his energy into helping this kid. It was the whole reason he’d insisted on tearing Robert Jackson to shreds, in order to protect his son from his toxic influence.

But there was no time.

“Listen, Lachlan,” Yuuri said, pitching his voice back into Evan’s register and taking the boy by the shoulders. “You can’t let your nerves get the better of you. If you do, you’re dead. Full stop.”

“Uh…” It didn’t seem to be the answer Lachlan had expected. “W-what?”

Yuuri was barely talking to the boy in front of him. “You're nothing, _nothing_ , unless you have people behind you who care about you. Once you know what love is, you’ll be stronger for it. Now…" He blinked, focusing. "Now go out there, and win that regional skate medal!”

He clapped Lachlan on the shoulder once before letting go, moving to the entrance of the locker room, ready to make his way to the ice for warm-ups.

“Um…” the boy called after him. “Th-thank you!”

Yuuri didn’t listen, his focus already narrowing to the task ahead of him.

He had the love and support of his team behind him. He had all of them relying on him.

He couldn’t screw up now.

 

\--

 

“What do you mean, the car won’t start?” JJ asked angrily.

One of his hired bodyguards, Chaz or Mike or Tim, looked uneasily at his two fellows. “Spark plugs were gone,” one of them grunted, while the other two shuffled their feet.

“Damn,” JJ swore, tightening his grip on the briefcase he carried. “Must’ve been Plisetsky. Guess we should be lucky he didn’t rig our engine with C4.” Yuri Plisetsky always did seem to dance a line between delicate beauty and sordid chaos. It was impossible for JJ to determine what tactic he would resort to at any given time.

“Boss,” grunted one of the mercs, “you should get out on foot. You gotta rendezvous with Mnuchin in an hour.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” JJ snapped, taking a few steps toward the door regardless. He might be able to take a car from valet parking if one of them backed him up, but…

He froze as an all-too familiar face came into view on the closed-circuit monitors overhead.

The monitor showed what was happening on the ice for those who were out of their seats getting snacks or using the bathroom. But as of right now, the cameras were showing one figure on the ice skating laps in warm-up. A face JJ hadn’t seen in nearly three years, since he’d left him high and dry mid-job in Barcelona.

“Katsuki,” he breathed, watching Yuuri Katsuki glide across the ice, four or five other figures skating around him as they did their own warm-ups.

“Who?” said Mike-Chaz-Tim, looking around the lobby for whoever JJ was talking about.

“Yuuri Katsuki!” JJ said, pointing at the monitors. “On the ice, right now! Son of a bitch owes me after making me rot in Spanish prison!”

(Sure, JJ had broken out after serving a little less than a month of his sentence. But it had been a long month!)

“Boss,” the same merc said. “About Mnuchin…”

“He’ll have to wait,” JJ spat, eyes still fixed on Katsuki’s image on the television screen. The darkness of his costume, his hair, his eyes, all seemed to suggest a shadow, stalking JJ until he’d finally gotten his revenge.

“The minute he steps off the ice, nab him. And bring him to me.” He clenched his fist. “Let’s show him what happens to those who disrespect a King.”

 

\--

 

God, figure skating was excruciatingly dull.

Robert Jackson shifted in his seat rinkside — which was nowhere near as exciting as sitting ringside during a wrestling match, even if he did have money on this competition as well. This competition so far had been nothing but children showing off for their excited parents, or pubescent girls twisting their bodies into improbable shapes as they flew across the rink, wearing tiny dresses that clung to every curve.

(Well, that part had at least been fun to watch.)

But now, at least, it was time for his pet to take the ice. Evan Carroll skated to the center of the ice, waving at the crowd, his chin held high as he took his starting position.

This was it. Watching the man skate was practically a formality, with the results such a foregone conclusion. Jackson could hardly wait to see Carroll crowned the winner of this mess so he might be able to collect on his investment.

The routine started just as Jackson remembered it. The strumming of guitar strings that called to mind late nights in Sevilla. The singing of violin strings that almost seemed to weave around Carroll’s body as he moved on the ice, spinning and skipping and… however you would describe the moves the other man was making. Jackson had spent his son’s career purposely ignoring the intricacies of figure skating, and wasn’t about to start learning it now even with millions on the line.

All he needed to know was whether or not Carroll had what it took to make him rich.

Carroll glided, he twirled, his hips swaying, wrists swiveling over his head, and the sighs of the spectators around him told him that his pet was doing well.

Then Carroll leaped into the air, performing his first jump, and too soon, it all fell apart.

Carroll’s skate buckled beneath him when he landed, and he fell, hard, onto the ice.

The music abruptly stopped, the concerned murmurs of the crowd taking over as people got to their feet, craning their necks to get a better look at the fallen former champion. Carroll was lying on his back on the ice, one knee tucked close to his chest, and a cry of pain echoed across the cold, unforgiving surface of the rink.

“They should call a paramedic,” murmured a woman a couple of seats down from him. “That fall looked really terrible.” 

“Such a shame,” said the man beside her, shaking his head. “After finally recovering from that injury he had in juniors, too.”

Rink staff broke through the barrier surrounding the rink, skating to Carroll’s side in order to check on him, and it was soon apparent that he would not be leaving the ice under his own power. As they skated off to grab a stretcher for him, Jackson found his hands forming into fists.

Robert Jackson refused to be made a fool of like this. Not after all he’d invested into this foolish mockery of a sport.

Carroll would pay for his screw-up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, one last cliffhanger. I’M SORRY. If it helps, I’m positive that the next chapter will be the last. Lots more action to come, as well as, I hope, a satisfying resolution. 
> 
> A few worldbuilding/random notes:
> 
> \- The “San Andreas Fault,” which Victor tells Otabek to run in order to get Yurio out of the vault, is yet another a con I made up. Something to do with dogs barking and earthquakes, I don’t know. It was just shorthand for “I’m going to make Makkachin start barking as a distraction, and that’s when you blow a hole in the floor.” Yes, it’s something they’ve had to do before. 
> 
> \- The lockers in the vault are all named after skating moves: 3Lz, where the drive was supposed to be, is the triple lutz, while 4A (where Yurio escapes) is the quad axel. Why they have an abbreviation for a jump that’s never been successfully landed in competition, I’ll never know.
> 
> \- I personally don’t ship Otayuri, but if you want to read the moment between them in this chapter as romantic, I won’t be able to stop you. For the record, Yurio is 19 in this verse while Otabek is about 28. (Victor is 37, Yuuri is 33, and Phichit is 25.)
> 
> \- When JJ refers to “that mess in Barcelona,” that’s the same job Yuuri was on when he slept with Victor for the first time. He was… slightly too distracted to make sure he upheld his end of the deal he and JJ made. 
> 
> \- The discussion about Victor's trust issues with other members of the team was kind of a surprise addition to this chapter, but I like it so much that I will probably deal with it in a side fic once I'm done with this mess of a heist.
> 
> \- “Bonaly Gambit” and “Weir Turnabout” are, of course, references to Surya Bonaly (famous for backflips on ice) and Johnny Weir, who used to actually be _in_ this fic before I grabbed my writing id by its shoulders and shouted NO, YOU CANNOT DO THIS in its face. 
> 
> \- I’ve mentioned this in a comment before, but while Yuuri is skating to the Eros music, it’s not quite the Eros choreography from the anime. Mostly the jumps are downgraded and the footwork is a little less intricate because, while Yuuri has some skating background in this verse, he is also VERY out of practice being on skates. But, again, for a regional skating competition, he doesn’t really need to be Grand Prix-worthy. 
> 
> One last bit to go!! A couple of things to look forward to: Otabek FINALLY punching some hockey players and doing his dang job! Yurio cornering JJ in the locker room! And a little _Stammi Vicino_!


End file.
